Cubs Sign Backup Catcher in Attempt to Woo Darvish, Jays Get Older

With about a month to go until Spring Training and as heated speculation about the final destination of free agent SP and World Series goat Yu Darvish continues, the Cubs have signed journeyman C Chris Gimenez, a former teammate of Darvish’s with the Rangers. The wide consensus among those following the Cubs is this is in an effort to attract Darvish by basically having a personal catcher available to him. It’s expected Gimenez will compete with minor-leaguer Victor Caratini, who appeared for the Cubs in the bigs on several occasions in 2017, to back up Willson Contreras.

On the home front, the Blue Jays have signed veteran OF Curtis Granderson to a one-year deal. His BA and OPS (.212 and .775, respectively, for 2017 with the Mets and Dodgers) have dropped off a bit since his 2015 campaign with the Mets, when the team appeared in the World Series and Granderson finished 18th in NL MVP voting. While Granderson is a solid veteran player and a 20+ HR season by a part-time player is nothing to sneeze at, I thought the whole point of letting Jose Bautista go was to get younger?