If the Sox lineup has a weak spot, it’s right here.
I’m not going to front: I am worried about the catching position for the Boston Red Sox, both in 2025 and for the foreseeable future. In fact, now that the Sox find themselves with a surplus of both infielders and outfielders (a surplus which is only going to get worse as we approach the impending prospect graduations of guys like Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell, Marcelo Mayer, Jhostynxn Garcia, etc…) I would suggest that catcher is now the biggest position of need in the organization.
Does that mean that this hole is some kind of fatal flaw for the 2025 Sox? No, it does not. Take a look around the league and you’ll find that there simply isn’t a lot of talent behind the plate right now. Only three of the top-50 position players by bWAR in 2024 were catchers: Milwaukee’s William Contreras, whose 4.9 bWAR was good for 20th in baseball last year, Seattle’s Cal Raleigh (4.7, 23rd), and Will Smith of the Dodgers (3.5, 50). It’s hard to find good catching is what I’m saying. That’s not to let the Sox front office off the hook — there were a handful of free agent options on the market this year who would’ve improved the club’s catching situation — but it’s important to keep things in perspective.
The Starter
Connor Wong
Photo by Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images
Defense in baseball has always been notoriously difficult to assess. The eye test lies to you (see, e.g., Derek Jeter’s prodigious talent for making routine grounders to his right look like web gems), and statistical models can be wonky and prone to sample size error. This is particularly true when it comes to catchers, who are responsible for so many things we can’t pick up on a broadcast.
But Connor Wong is an exception to this. Not only is Connor Wong a bad defensive catcher, but you can plainly see how bad he is. His glove moves all over the strike zone, he’s a poor framer, and he regularly mishandles difficult pitches. Baseball Savant graded him as the third-worst catcher in the game at blocking, estimating that, based on the movement and location of the pitches he received, he should have allowed only 25 wild pitches/passed balls last year, compared to the 38 he actually allowed. And he didn’t just struggle with pitches in the dirt, either, he also mishandled pitches on the edge of the zone that could easily be called strikes:
Baseball Savant
His framing was abysmal last year, as he converted just 45.5% of non-swing pitches on the edge of the strike zone into called strikes, which ranked 52nd among all catchers. And while he does do a good job of controlling the running game, he’s not exactly prime Ivan Rodriguez back there, placing just 15th in baseball over the past two seasons in caught-stealing above average.
You could accept the defensive deficiencies if he was a force with the bat, and Wong did have some nice stretches of production last year. He finished with the fifth-highest batting average among all catchers, the 10th-highest OBP, and the 17th-most homers. But there was a lot of luck behind that production thanks to a .348 BABIP, which led all Red Sox regulars. A peek at the underlying metrics suggests that there’s some big time regression coming:
Baseball Savant
Connor Wong is the catcher of the present by default. But he shouldn’t be the catcher of the future.
The Backup
Carlos Narveaz or Blake Sabol
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
We have a good old-fashioned spring training battle for the backup catcher spot this year. But don’t expect either Carlos Narveaz or Blake Sabol to save the Sox behind the plate, as neither player has much of a ceiling.
Narveaz has just 13 at-bats in his entire MLB career despite the fact that he’s already 26-years-old. He’s shown decent plate discipline with a little power at AAA (11 homers and a .370 OBP in 97 games last year) and scouts view him as a good receiver, but he’s not someone who changes the game with his glove and he’s probably destined to be a quad-A player.
Sabol is a year older and has started 53 games behind the plate for the Giants over the past two years. He has some decent power potential, having hit 13 big league homers in 2023. But he’s not viewed as a plus defender and has spent almost as much time in outfield corners as he has behind the plate in the Majors.
Narvaez would seem to have the inside edge given that the Sox dealt a prospect with value to acquire him (Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, a pitcher in the lower minors with the ceiling of a back-end starter). But Sabol, being left-handed, pairs better with Wong as a platoon partner.
Minor League Depth
Whoever loses the Narvaez/Sabol battle will head to Worcester and serve as the organization’s third catcher alongside Seby Zavala, a glove-first catcher who is a black hole at the plate.
As for prospects, there really aren’t any. Nathan Hickey in AAA has the bat to one day be a big league bench option, but he’s been spending less and less time behind the plate as he moves up the ladder and is not a future major league catcher. The only real catching prospect of note in the entire organization is Johanfran Garcia, who will likely start the year at high-A Salem and is probably at least three years away.
FanGraphs Projections
Around the AL East
Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images
Can you believe that Adley Rutschman wasn’t one of the three catchers who finished in the top-50 for bWAR last year? He just missed the cut at 3.4 in what was the most disappointing season of his young career. There’s no reason to believe that he won’t bounce back, though, and he’s probably going to be the premier catcher in the game for the foreseeable future.
Austin Wells had a strong rookie year for the Yankees and will likely be the number one option in the Bronx for years to come, though I don’t expect him to ever ascend to All-Star level. Beyond those two, there isn’t anything special in the AL East (and if you want to object to the use of the word “special” to describe Austin Wells, I won’t stop you). The Rays are going to give it a go with Danny Jansen, who looked completely cooked with the Sox last year, while the Jays are hoping that Alejandro Kirk can bounce back after two mediocre seasons.
The catching situation in the AL East is essentially Adley Rustchman and then everyone else.
- Baltimore Orioles
- New York Yankees
- Toronto Blue Jays
- Boston Red Sox
- Tampa Bay Rays