Red Sox catcher Blake Swihart “has been told there will be no more experimenting with other positions” in 2017, writes WEEI’s Rob Bradford. His outfield experiment is seemingly over, meaning he’ll return to his original position of catcher and remain there exclusively for the foreseeable future.
Swihart, 25 in April, has long rated as one of the game’s best all-around prospects. However, questions surrounding his defensive prowess (and the presence of many other catchers on the Boston roster) led the Sox to try Swihart in left field last year. However, the experiment proved to be an ill-fated one, as Swihart suffered a severe ankle injury shortly into his first exposure to outfield work and wound up undergoing season-ending surgery to repair the matter.
That injury made the 2016 campaign an abbreviated and disappointing one for Swihart, who finished the year with a lackluster .258/.365/.355 batting line in just 79 Major League plate appearances to go along with a .243/.344/.311 slash in 122 PAs with Triple-A Pawtucket. Despite those offensive struggles and some apparent questions about his defensive capabilities, though, the Red Sox don’t appear to have soured on Swihart. On the contrary, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reported again this week that the Diamondbacks inquired with Boston on both Swihart and Christian Vazquez and found president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski reluctant to deal either young backstop. That leaves the Red Sox with three catching options in 2017 and well beyond, creating for a somewhat uncertain outlook.
As Bradford writes, Sandy Leon will be given the first crack at regular playing time in 2017 as he looks to show that his 2016 breakout is sustainable. Leon finished the season with a sensational .310/.369/.476 batting line in 283 plate appearances, but his bat wilted in the season’s final month. In addition to that, Leon’s .392 average on balls in play appears entirely unsustainable, especially for a player that has such limited speed. Leon batted an incredible .366 on grounders putting him on par with burners like Billy Hamilton and Trea Turner. Meanwhile, the league as a whole batted just .239 on grounders, and one can reasonably expect a player with Leon’s lack of speed to check in below the mean over a larger sample of at-bats.
Nonetheless, Leon thwarted a stellar 41 percent of attempted stolen bases last season, and while he rated as a somewhat below-average pitch framer, per Baseball Prospectus, he has a strong track record in that regard when looking at his minor league career as a whole. At the very least, he could be a sound defensive option that hits from both sides of the plate, and he’s controllable through 2020. Certainly, there’s value in Leon, the question for Dombrowski & Co. is simply how much of his seemingly out-of-the-blue offensive gains in 2016 are sustainable.
Swihart figures to battle with Vazquez to see who will back up Leon to open the season, but if Leon sputters then either of the two promising young understudies could eventually find himself in a more prominent role with the Sox in 2017. Swihart does have a minor league option remaining, so he can be sent down without being exposed to waivers if the Sox wish to get him some more work both behind and at the plate in the wake of his truncated 2016 campaign.
As recently as the 2014-15 offseason, Swihart rated as the game’s No. 17 overall prospect, per Baseball America, who praised him as a potential two-way force behind the dish. Swihart didn’t begin switch-hitting or catching until he was about halfway through high school, and BA’s scouting report noted that the lack of lifetime experience in both regards always created the potential for some growing pains as he got to the upper levels of the minors and into the Major Leagues. “There’s a chance that his aggressive tendencies will be exploited by advanced pitching, which could result in a challenging transition to the big leagues after a lengthy apprenticeship in Pawtucket in 2015,” BA wrote at the time. But Swihart’s overall package of tools and athleticism undoubtedly remain appealing to both the Red Sox and to other organizations. It’s understandable, then, that Dombrowski and his staff aren’t exactly keen on trading him at all, let alone when his value is at a low point.
Vazquez, meanwhile, never generated the same level of prospect fanfare that Swihart did. However, he’s long been touted as one of the best defensive catchers in all of Minor League Baseball, and his superlative glovework gives him a high floor. He’s thrown out 44 percent of attempted base thieves at the Major League level and a similarly impressive 38 percent caught-stealing rate over the life of his minor league career. Vazquez has drawn consistently excellent framing marks throughout his minor league career and is a .273/.339/.379 hitter in 109 Triple-A games. He missed the 2015 season due to Tommy John surgery, but the procedure didn’t seem to have an adverse affect on his throwing in 2016, as he caught 19 of 47 runners between the Majors and Triple-A (40.4 percent).
BA’s most recent scouting report on Vazquez cites “sneaky” pop that could yield an annual home-run total in the low double digits, and he did hit 18 homers at Class-A back in 2011, though that’s the lone pro season in which he’s demonstrated significant power, and it’s quite a ways in the rear-view mirror at this point. Still, given his defensive ceiling, Vazquez doesn’t need to be a star at the plate to be a starter in the Majors.
To somewhat crudely sum things up, Leon has had the most success in the Majors, while Swihart has the highest offensive ceiling of the bunch and Vazquez has the best defensive skill-set. The Red Sox will devote countless hours of evaluation to answering this question (and likely have already been doing so for the past year), but let’s see what MLBTR readership thinks on the matter (link to poll for Trade Rumors app users)…
Gotta go with the defense so I think it’s easily Vasquez
Agreed. Vasquez is a great defender at a prime position that greatly improves the pitching staff. His impact is two fold.
Completely agree. Vazquez’s defensive abilities right now provide immediate value, and shore up defensive play up the middle. IF Swihart’s bat develops as hoped, he could be a long term option at first base, plausibly.
Based on how difficult it is to obtain a premium catcher, I am not sure any of them are the “catcher of the future”. Unfortunately, you can’t combine each of their best attributes into one catcher.
To answer the poll question about which of the 3 represents the best long term catching option for the Red Sox? I think I would have to say none at this point. Just my opinion but I’m not sure the best long term catching option for the Red Sox is even in their system yet. But of course I could be wrong.
Swihart seems to be the only one with the upside to be a star catcher, but his lack of power and questionable defense make me skeptical. I think Vazquez is probably a starting-caliber player, and I’d take him if given a pick of the 3, but I’m not really sold that any is a great long-term option, I agree.
That said, though, I would still be happy (as a Diamondback fan) to see Hazen acquire either of those two (although unlikely), given that their “catcher of the future” is, uh…Oscar Hernandez, maybe?
Hazen wanted Swihart so did the Hahn and were flat refused. I’m pretty sure that the Red Sox brass view Swihart as the catcher of the future. I am also quite sure that GM’s around the league view him as that as well.
It’s just a game that Boston is playing. Everyone has seen what a disappointment Swihart was last year, and that the Sox decided his future wasn’t at C. Now, they are getting lowballed (getting offered fair value) for the value that Swihart showed. Boston has pulled a 360 after discovering he has so little value if he plays any other position. I think it was the quality of the offer was not up to their expectations, and has nothing to do with Swihart being the C of the future, because defense is what is being valued at the position. Swihart doesn’t offer that.
He is going to have every chance to start. He was rushed up because of injury. You are just a Red Sox hater.
Why is it almost without exception the standard comment from most Red Sox fans when anyone makes a negative comment or observation that is not complimentary about the Red Sox or their players their reply is “you’re a Red Sox hater”. The truth isn’t always easy to accept.
I don’t think that’s true as hole. As a Red Sox fan I am accept criticism of a lot of players on the team and think there are a lot of good players out there on every team. I also think that that Swihart has been one of the most interesting players in a while and I just don’t think people realize how much he was made a scapegoat of the underperforming high priced pitching staff. I may be wrong about Swihart but don’t think so. On this site people make a lot of comments about people they don’t even watch. I am pretty sure Stely is a braves fan from some other comments I have seen but clearly hasn’t watched much of Swihart. If you want to say Castillo has been a complete bust I would agree with you but the jury is still way out on Swihart and calling him a bust is way to early. Sometimes players aren’t handled properly because of circumstance or something else and I think Swihart has fallen into that but he is a quality enough player that he will be fine. The only real question I have is DD he seems to be the kind of GM that gets his mind made up about something it’s tougher to change it and maybe Swihart will have to show his skills with another team otherwise I believe he will be the Red Sox catcher for the future.
You may be the exception about what I said about Red Sox fans. But it’s been my experience from the outside looking in that my previous comment is more accurate than you are willing to admit or acknowledge.
Boston might be rebuilding Swihart’s value for a trade. But also letting him progress at his natural position could help with the comfort factor and translate into offense. Who knows? I love Vazquez’ glove though.
Swihart’s development has been stunted, that’s why he’s behind in his defense. They rushed him up due to injuries, then sent him down to learn another position because they had ZERO Outfield depth, then he got injured. He is expected to Catch in AAA for the season and hopefully people like Varitek and Gedman will work with him on his Defense.
Let Swihart swap positions with either Hanley or Pablo. The three of them love defense so much that they can switch positions daily like musical chairs and the results will be the same;)
Typical yank
Swihart’s lack of Power? HUH? He has Power, if fact that’s one of the reasons the Red Sox have taken so many phone calls on him and also why Swihart has been compared to players like Buster Posey.
I couldn’t agree more, in fact I was hoping they’d sign Wilson Ramos but they’re watching money this season. Hopefully they’ll go after LuCroy next winter when they have more money and a better idea of what they have at Catcher now.
Gary Sanchez. If I had to pick a catcher of the future that’s who I’d pick, maybe it could be a thank you for a little trade that happened around 100 years ago. I think Boston already has enough offense to get a strong defensive catcher and wait until they can somehow get an elite catcher.
…..
That doesn’t answer the poll question. I do think they could have added a None of the Above though.
Delete your account
If you are referring to Babe Ruth the fact is he was never traded by the Red Sox. They simple gave him away for some cash and a loan from the Yankees.
This is a painfully stupid post.
Of course Sanchez. He is a generational talent like Trout, but at a more premium position. I don’t think many would trade him straight up for Trout.
And that’s an even dumber comment
wow…
Just dumb
Please be sarcasm. Please be sarcasm
Eck is known to troll and pretend to be a Yankees fan, so yes, he’s being sarcastic.
You’ve formed this opinion on the 2 months or whatever it was he played? Let’s not compare anyone to Trout until they’ve played a couple of YEARS or more. Good grief.
Amazing how many people thinking elite catching is so easy to obtain.. sweihart had pass ball issues with the knuckleballer… so what so do a lot of catchers … I think he works in well … Vasquez needs bat seasoning, selective at the plate alittle more but you won’t find a better catcher
Sorry but you don’t have your facts straight, Swihart Only caught Wright once last season with NO passed balls. You have to go back another year when Swihart was rushed due to injury, and even then Wright only Started in 9 games for the Sox, Swihart had 4 Passed Balls in those 9 starts, which if you look at how horribly Hannigan caught Wright in 2016 you’d have to say Swihart caught him really well. In fact Swihart caught him better then Vazquez in comparison and Vazquez is supposed to be a great defensive Catcher. Only Leon caught Wright well.
My view with Papi out of that lineup, there is no way it’s going to be as effective as last year… he really had a career year his last year … I dont see that getting replaced realistically and no one else should expect that either
No one player needs to replace Ortiz. 3B & LF were bad last yr. Moreland’s “D” & Benitendi’s hitting plus removing Papi from the base paths will be ++++. The real question is Panda at 3b. Does he comeback the way Hanley did in 2016 or does he remain a negative. Remember a year ago the Boston press had the following ????
1. What will it take to dump Hanley, Panda & Porcello’s bad contracts?
2. Who will catch?
3. Who will play LF?
4. After Price who will start?
This year the only ??? are : 1. Can Panda come back? 2. How to use Wright, Pomerantz & E Rod? 3. Do they have enough depth at AAA?
Yes Papi is a big loss but this is a solid and deep group. I will put $$$ that they win more than 95 gms.
Pitching especially the pen has no where to go but up, pitching is better offense is not as good, but yes more wins totally acceptable
They had a record setting Offense, they don’t have to replace it and with better and more quality pitchers in the rotation and the pen a lesser offense shouldn’t be a big deal. Try doing the math, please.
I believe it will ultimately be Swihart as the starter with Vasquez behind him.
Huh? When? For the 2017 season it will be Leon Starting and Vazquez backing him up with Swihart in AAA.
With Swihart having an option left it is too early for the Sox to decide. Last year Hannigan, Swihart & Vasquez were all on the DL at the same time requiring the Sox to sign Brian Holaday to back up Leon. Having 3 C’s one with an option at AAA may not be enough to get though 2017. There is plenty of time to decide who to trade next winter.
I think swihart is just a late bloomer, but he’s not gonna totally live up to expectations.
Leon got exposed as a hitter to breaking balls down and in which led to his anemic end of the season. I’d like them to at least try Swihart at third base in spring training but that doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen. I say Vasquez gets the start unless the offense struggles without Papi.
D. Other
define “Other”
An option that isn’t one of these 3.
You’re going to have to be more specifics than these drive by posts.
Okay. D: None of the Above. Or D: Unknown.
Yeah, I’m not so sure why trace is having such an issue with this. I don’t think any of these 3 is an option to be boston’s catcher of the future.
Leon is my choice !!!
If they could get anything decent for Swihart now then they should deal him. This is the last year he has an option so if he hasn’t beaten out Leon or Vazquez by the end of the year he’s done in Boston.
Vazquez via the ability to frame for a potentially lethal pitching staff. They should still keep Swihart’s bat around (maybe at 1B if it fully develops). I view Leon’s 2016 as an outlier, but Red Sox can afford to gamble on it, so we’ll see what happens.
You have Sam Travis in the upper minors I believe. I would try to stick him at 3rd
I have two things to add. First, there needs to be some consistency from the authors regarding the interpretation of batting lines. For example, Swihart’s line of .258/.365 is described as “lackluster”. This is factually incorrect. Last year Swihart was essentially a league average hitter and was signifncantly above average in terms of getting on base. Not only that, where would his numbers rank relative to catchers? This is a fair question to raise given the first line of the article mentions that Swihart will be a Catcher full-time in 2017 & beyond. My guess is that Swihart’s offense numbers, albeit limited, would place him in the upper echelon of Catchers.
As for answering the poll question, I think the best thing for Boston to do is to essentially platoon Swihart and Vazquez the entire season. This keeps both fresh and provides the best balance of the traits that each brings to the table. Given that each has 5-6 years of service time left and their individual skill sets (Vazquez is elite defensively while Swihart is an above average hitter for a Catcher) it will be hard for Boston to get fair value if they decided to trade one of them. Maybe hit Vazquez exclusively against LHP (~60 games per year) and give him 30 or so games against RHP while Swihart can catch the other 72 games against RHP (he hits better from the left side) and maybe see 20 games or so at 1B/DH.
Last year’s numbers should pretty much be ignored anyway. 62 ABs is hardly a big enough sample size to make any sort of judgement on. That being said, .258/.365/.355 is definitely lackluster for a guy who spent the majority of the time in left field and even for a catcher .258 is pretty average and that .355 slugging is horrendous.
You left off the mediocre slugging
In an ideal World that’s what would happen but it isn’t an ideal World and they have Leon now who proved to be a Starting Catcher last season. Leon will start, Vazquez will back him up and Swihart will continue his development (which was stunted more then once) in AAA.
I expected a little more love for Sandy Leon in the poll. Even though, Blake Swihart is the catcher of the future. Leon earned himself the starting role. If he loses it, that’s on him but if it’s taken from him just because they “feel” Swihart is the better player that’s not fair to Leon.
Swihart is the catcher of the future in Boston. It’s amazing to me how everyone seems to have soured on the guy who was rushed to the majors performed well then got all of two weeks to in 2016. He will be fine behind the plate. He has a sweet swing and by mid season, after a half a year in AAA to work on his defense, he will be the starter for Boston for the next 10 years. The only thing I worry about is DD if he is as down on him as most fans seem to be then he will be a starting catcher for the next 10 years on another team. I really hope that does not happen. He really hasn’t been given a chance yet. He is a really good athlete and will be just fine if they don’t continue messing with him.
He hasn’t hit good anywhere since like 2014. That’s an awfully big expectation for him
Well that’s just not true he was almost an 800 ops catcher in the second half of 2015. 2016 was a lost year but as someone who watches nearly every Red Sox game he was really starting to barrel up the ball the last two weeks before he was injured. He will hit it’s just the game calling in question. He has good pop times a pretty strong arm and his framing was average as a rookie catcher in 2015. He will be fine in my opinion.
You don’t just get to ignore the times he wasn’t good. He had an ops of .712 (ops+ 90) in 2015, in 300 abs, which still isn’t really enough of a sample size to draw any meaningful conclusion from. That’s not bad production for a catcher, but if he can’t improve the defense, that’s not really “catcher of the future” type material. (his defense has been questioned by scouts for a while, its not just that he let knuckle balls past)
Except they weren’t asking for Swihart to headline it was Betts according to the guy who was asking Amaro who also, by the way happens to be a Red Sox coach now. If it was just Swihart and lesser pieces it probably would have been done. The Phillies wanted Betts for Cole. Would that if been a good trade?
Swihart was screwed over by Farrell. He did absolutely fine in 2015, and towards the final 2 month tallied a .300/.350/.450 line leading to 1.4fWAR.
The mishandling of banishing him and making him a half-assed OF is enough for someone in charge to lose his job.
-16 defensive runs saved, a 28% caught stealing rate, 16 passed balls, 43 wild pitches, and -28 estimated defensive runs saved per season is awful behind the plate. They had to give it a shot at moving him elsewhere.
A lot of that was due to the fact that he was learning to catch a knuckle
Swihart has caught 740 innings and 70 were with Steven Wright. I don’t know why Red Sox fans (not sure if you are one) act as if Swihart’s troubles behind the plate were because of Wright when the numbers show that 90% of innings caught were pitchers other than Wright.
Because it’s a convenient narrative to try to hand wave away the very real defensive struggles. These also aren’t just something that manifested in MLB, scouts have commented on his subpar defense before.
Learning to catch a knuckleball is a challenge. There are knuckler’s catchers specialty. But this isn’t the point, moving him to the OF was a wrench in his development. He should learn the backstop position and be given ample time to see if he can do it. The 740 inning sample is too little to draw conclusions.
Hannigan is known as a good defensive catcher and he nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to catch Wright.
Amazingly, Hannigan’s numbers were no where as bad as Swiharts.
Acually stymee Hanigan had 18 passed balls last year more than quadruple in any other year according to fangraphs and less time as well. He absolutely struggled worse than Swihart with Wright. Wright made an above average catcher have a horrible year last year and I’m not kidding it seemed like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown when he had to catch Wright.
Yet, the organization did not move Hanigan to a different position. Perhaps because he was so much better when it was a non knuckleballer on the mound.
Seriously you just trolling now? Swihart is such a better athlete it’s not even close it had nothing to do with Hannigan being so much better when are people going to realize Swihart was just the scapegoat for a slow start by the Red Sox starters and culminated with a big time struggle game with Wright. Is he the defensive catcher that Leon or Vasquez is no he isn’t but overall he has by far the highest ceiling of any of the three. Is there a chance that he bombs as a catcher, of course there is, my point was that Hannigan really struggled with Wright and even the elite defender Vasquez had 9 passed balls most of which were with Wright on the mound. Wright is very difficult to catch and You can’t rate Swihart in what happened last year. Another thing when Swihart was coming up no one ever said his defense was poor I never read any scout that didn’t think he would stick as a catcher. The only thing I do remember is that his bat was more advanced then his catching skills. In no where have I seen anyone say he can’t make it as a big league catcher.
I meant wouldn’t stick as a catcher.
False. Swihart Only caught Wright once last season with NO passed balls. You have to go back another year when Swihart was rushed due to injury, and even then Wright only Started in 9 games for the Sox, Swihart had 4 Passed Balls in those 9 starts, which if you look at how horribly Hannigan caught Wright in 2016 you’d have to say Swihart caught him really well. In fact Swihart caught him better then Vazquez in comparison and Vazquez is supposed to be a great defensive Catcher. Only Leon caught Wright well.
Swihart for me based off his floor is definitely the highest he’s going to provide @ minimum an above average bat with below average defense from a position that offers little in the way of offense with the exception of a few guys. Vazquez although great behind the plate can’t hit and Leon still has alot to prove outside of that one stretch offensively. All this said catcher of the future is definitely different than who starts the year Leon gets every chance to start given their options swihart could use further refinement behind the plate better to have that @ aaa anyways.
Everyone forgets that the start of Swiharts defensive troubles began when he started catching Steven Wright. Beyond him and a pop up against the net he dropped that year, he was relatively fine. I think his defensive inability gets over blown.
Of all their options I think Swiharts the future. I just dont think Leon can come close to replicating his breakout portion last year, and will be more like the wilted stats towards the end of the year.
Completely agree I think he also caught slack for the ineptitude of certain pitchers who were just pitching horribly @ the time like Buchholz and price.
Yes let’s blame all 740 innings of his sub par defense on a pitcher who he’s only caught 70 innings with. There’s no way his defensive numbers are skewed because of a 10% sample. I wish there was a way to find out advanced numbers with pitchers other than Wright.
Oh, I’m sorry, all 740 were sub par? I’d love to know how we arrived at that as well. His time spent with Wright was sub par for sure, but then again, Hannigan was sub par with him, as well as just about anyone else that caught him, so a 10% downgrade does take it’s toll on the overall score. Not to mention that we’re including all the early lead up that was bound to have struggles coupled with what seemed like him starting to stabilize. It’s easy to look at a stats sheet and say the guy was terrible without having watched him play. I don’t catch every Sox game there is, but watch at least 50% of the games they play every year and he didn’t look much worse defensively than what they had available.
You admit to only watching a max of 50% of redsox games, yet think that your 50% viewing is a better gauge of swihart’s defensive talent than multiple metrics that peg him as a pretty bad catcher?
Defensive metrics aren’t perfect, but they are almost certainly better than the 50% of the game eye test. Defense is something that is hard to gauge because you don’t have a chance to watch all the other catchers (in this instance) all year to get an idea of what a normal catcher is capable of doing defensively.
740 WHOPPING innings, is that like 80 games? EIGHTY GAMES.
And he had defensive questions as a prospect. If they want him to catch, he needs to spend time in AAA learning how to do it,
The sample size also has nothing to do with the point that his bad defensive isn’t only because of having to catch a knuckle ball.
Youre right. I must have caught the 50% where he wasnt a bad catcher, but rather starting to settle into the role a bit before they started working Wright into his rotation and him getting injured the following year. My point was that hes got less than a year of MLB experience and hes seemed to get better the more hes been given a chance to settle.
MB is a troll, don’t take his posts seriously.
He was supposed to spend the entire 2015 in the minors only for called up because of emergency. He will be just fine after half a year in AAA defensively and his bat will play at the big league level.
Yet the organization, and their coaches, who see the player every day, thought enough of his ability as a catcher, that they agreed to move him to the OF. That speaks volumes about his ability, no matter how many games you watched.
That isn’t a knock on him if you remember he Red Sox had a serious problem in left field with injuries. He was a good enough athlete to be brought up to play left because of injuries and because Rusney was such a bust. Look time will tell but I believe he will be a catcher his bat will play and his defense will be at least average. There are not many athletes at catcher as good as Swihart
LOL. Far from a troll Eck.
How many teams move their catcher who they think will be a good everyday catcher to cover a hole? The only ones I can think of is Evan Gattis since he was awful as a catcher and Peter o’brien who was awful as a catcher
How about Craig Biggio? Houston moved him to 2B to cover a hole. Then to CF to cover another hole. Yet he could have stayed a Catcher.
where’s the option for “Who gives a f**k?”
well most people here are baseball fans, so not sure that’d get very many votes
Considering today’s long term answer at a position usually constitutes 4-6 yrs, unlike the days of Fisk, it might get more votes than you think.
It is still best way to build a team to be strong up the middle. Vasquez is best option, with Swihart as backup. Leon has some trade value with Sox a little thin at 3b/1b and OF depth.
They are Not thin at 1st and 3rd, please look at ALL of the people that have been added to the Major and Minor league systems and who has been invited to Spring Training, they have plenty of depth/options, it’s only the Outfield that they are a little thin.
Stephen Vogt?
Leon’s season is a stone fluke, akin to Rene Rivera’s 2014. He’s not going to do that again. Swihart and Vazquez make for a nice offensive/defensive platoon although I could see the Red Sox swooping in on somebody like Nick Hundley as insurance. I don’t think Swihart’s trouble with the knuckler should be as pronounced this season, especially since Wright is probably the 6th starter/long reliever.
I see Vazquez as a baby Yadier Molina. I know that’s a very lofty comparison for a guy who hasn’t done anything yet but the tools compare favorably to Yadier at that age.
I think most would agree that Leon is keeping the seat warm for either prospect. The question becomes, gamble on the more raw talent with more offensive potential or go with the steady hand that will bolster not only your defense but more positively influence your pitching staff. Personally, I think offensive catchers are a luxury and less likely to help your team in the grand scheme of things, not to say Swihart is without value. Package him, snag a high upside arm.
In what universe are these two remotely alike? Yadi was always an elite defensive catcher and Swihart has always been seen as a bad defensive catcher. Even the advanced statistics back up this up by rating Swihart very poorly. Now that analytics are starting to gravitate to the idea that defense (pitch framing, etc.) is more important than offense for a catcher he is even less valuable.
He was saying Vasquez not Swihart.
Making me wish Swihart headlined that Cole Hamels package… We wouldn’t have handed Price $200 million, and I still would’ve been ok with the Sale trade.
No one, let the umpire catch
I agree, but you have to get rule 4.03(a) repealed first.
Wasn’t Leon the name of the pimp snowman in the movie Elf?
Hell, let’s go with Dan Butler! (Sarcasm from a Sox fan)
Make Leon the backup. Sign Wieters to a 1 year deal. Let the 2 young guys fight it our in AAA. Make a mid-season trade to move the ones who don’t fit.
the backup Leon outWARed Wieters last season.
Vazquez is out of options.
Thank God Swihart isn’t on the Angels. Everyone would be blaming Artie for not dealing him yet.
Funny… I can’t help but wonder with all the young catchers how long it will be before Chris Sale flips out. (My over under is his 10th start)
He won’t yell at his teammates, he will flip out on a coach or trainer or uniform maker
Everyone says this is a great offense and it was last year. However how many of them were performing at peak or near peak performances. Not getting a something to help ease the loss of Papi is a grave mistake. They’ll fight for a wildcard and if they make it they’ll flame out again
That’s a silly comment there pitching is way better then last year there offense won’t be quite as good and as we all know you just need to get to the playoffs anything can happen.
They can always trade for a bat at the deadline or perhaps someone like Sam Travis or Raphael Devers makes an impact like some of the younger players before them. Stop with the doom and gloom, like Shane Victorino’s walk up music “Every little thing gonna be alright”.
I would move Leon while his value is at it’s absolute peak. You still have 2 pretty good catchers with defensive (Vazquez) and offensive (Swithart) upside.
Vasquez is the guy. Defense at that position is key and he’s great at handling our pitching staff. Just look how important Roberto Perez defense was for the Indians throughout the whole postseason.
Vazquez, high floor as a catcher due to his glove work. Red Sox are loaded with great hitters so they can take the hit of Vazquez’s subpar hitting.
Who really cares about there catching, I bet they trade 1 of them. To me I would start Leon and let the other battle for the backup spot,
“There” is not right in that sentence. Should be “their.”
Not all heroes wear capes.
Thank you Professor!
I think catcher defense is really important but a catcher who can hit is such a rarity that sometimes teams can overlook it. Mike Piazza comes to mind of course (although he was a terrific pitch framer, everything else defensively was a negative.) Jorge Posada, who is a borderline Hall of Famer, was a terrible catcher. He had a very good throwing arm but when it came to actually, you know, catching the ball he was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Plus, dude called more mound meetings than any catcher I’ve ever seen. But the offense was great and that eclipsed his deficiencies behind the plate. That could be the Swihart career path.