The Red Sox have released catcher Jonathan Lucroy, Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com tweets. He had been part of their 60-man player pool.
Lucroy, whom the Red Sox signed to a minor league contract over the winter, made one appearance for the team earlier this season. The 34-year-old has now appeared in the majors in 11 consecutive seasons, but the two-time All-Star’s shine has come off over the past few campaigns.
Once rightly regarded as an elite two-way catcher with the Brewers, Lucroy’s production at the plate has cratered since 2017. Likewise, while Lucroy used to be an elite framer, he has experienced difficulty in that regard during the past few years. He’ll likely try for another contract with a new team – one worse than the Red Sox behind the plate. Their top two backstops, Christian Vazquez and Kevin Plawecki, have performed well this year.
Interesting they would cut ties with Lucroy over multiple players on the 60 man, several catchers of less use than him.. Jett Bandy, Juan Centeno, half the rotating stench of relievers they keep calling up. AAAA infielders, OF’ers. What they are doing this season is mind boggling.
They have 12 games left, why hold Lucroy if they won’t use him? It’s obvious what they are doing…passing time during what was going to be a wasted season for them regardless if it was 162 or 60 games. I would expect a similar season next year.
Lucroy is not in the Red Sox plan for next year. Grullon and Wong look like possible future mlb catchers.
Interesting that there were lots of complaints on mlbtraderumors about the Red Sox signing Plawecki $900,000. He is batting .321, OPS .813 (FA from Cleveland)(yes, small sample size). Sandy Leon is now at Cleveland batting .150, OPS .568 (I think the arbitration amount was $2,300,000)…..
I’m not a fan of Leon by any means, but the Indians prioritize defense behind the plate (especially with the backup). Leon is a terrible hitter, but they acquired him for his defense and apparently figured the slight increase in salary was worth it.
I did some digging and Indians pitchers have a 3.20 team ERA when pitching to Leon, which really isn’t much of a drop off from their 2.96 ERA when Roberto Perez is catching. Again, Leon can’t hit the broad side of a barn, but it’s good to have a backup that can still handle a pitching staff.
Leon was a very good defensive catcher, but with only one above average offensive year out of the five years as a Red Sox player (the other 4 yrs very well below average), I am glad he was traded away. He was a near automatic out in pressure situations. The $1,400,000 savings and 2 years of control on Plawecki helped too.
Believe me, Plaw will cool off an get back to being horrible
Plawecki is only a stop gap to Grullón or Wong, but he has been clutch with 12 RBIs in only 56 ABs. Plawecki does not have to be Mookie Betts as Vázquez will continue to get most of the playing time.
With Plawecki’s .813 OPS and under team control for 2 years, I would not be surprised if Bloom flips him for younger prospects. It is how Bloom operated in Tampa, and so far in Boston. (Sign a FA at zero prospect cost and flip them at trading deadline or after one year for prospects to refill the pipeline.)
No one is giving you worthwhile prospects for the likes of Kevin Plawecki
Small sample size on KP. Let’s not get to excited or depressed about stats this year. I turned on the radio this morning and chuckled when the argument was on who should win the Cy Young award in the NL. Not enough starts in my view to take it seriously.
Mets should put him in the 60 player pool. In case Ramos or Chirinos go down on the Mets quest for October. *Half kidding.
I forgot about Lucroy. As with Tulo, Cutch, and Harrison, the columnists, sportsradio hosts, and blog commenters here in New York were all over Sandy Alderson for not meeting the Brewers’ price for Lucroy in 2016. They said trade Wheeler, Rosario, Conforto, Nimmo. Fools. I’m surrounded by fools here. And not one admits they were wrong about all four of those non-trades.
His career is almost over isn’t it… I could see a team like the Mariners signing him to a minors deal. I expect him to retire here in the next year or so. Too bad, because he was a great player in his prime. But who knows, I mean, Matt Wieters has stuck it out a lot longer than I though he would.
Ya, surprisingly 34 years old isn’t super old for catchers now. Along w/ M.Weiters, F.Cervelli lasted a really long time too. Y.Molina, K.Suzuki, Y. Chirinos are all older. And im sure their are plenty more. Crazy catchers are playing past 35 years-old.
I know he played some 1b, but Lucroy played a ton of games in his prime. Not many catchers last long with that kind of mileage. His career kind of teetered out like Kendall’s, all of a sudden the bat and skills are just gone (I know Kendall stuck around longer and kept playing a lot of games).
Ya, he’s an offensive-minded Catcher too. Most of the older guys are really good defensively. Except maybe Weiters. But he’s also. switch-hitter for a back-up and he probably doesn’t have much left either. F.Cervelli, Molina, Kendall, Russell Martin, K.Suzuki are all really good defensive catchers. I think Kendall won acouple gold gloves; that’s why he stuck around after his bat wavered.
Very true. If he could play defense he could stick around another five or six years.
Funny story about jason Kendall. My buddy in HS called a sports radio show and did a whole interview as Jason Kendall. Back in the late 90’s when the jerky boys were out. I think it was ESPN radio. Lol. He said his name at the end. At the end of the interview he said, “I would like to give a shout out to “———-“, without him, none of this would be possible..lol. He taped it off the radio on a cassette tape. I used to make him play it for people all the time.
Also, keep in mind Lucroy had an offseason surgery to repair a herniated disk in his neck. Since then, he hasn’t really had the playing time to get back into the swing of things. He played with that neck injury for like 3 years. Not saying Lucroy is the best catcher in the MLB… but if he’s given the chance to have playing time, he can certainly add value.
What’s with the Brewers and neck injuries?
This is kind of weird timing… you’d assume the knew they weren’t going to give him any playing time at the ML level prior to today — and had they released him a week or so ago – he would’ve been eligible to sign as a FA and be eligible for the postseason if he had signed somewhere prior to today. Not that he necessarily would’ve been able to find a spot — but given his track record a team in need of a C might’ve given him a shot had the Sox not waited until now to release him.
Ahh… he was released in time to sign with a team and be post-season eligible… the timing makes a lot more sense now. I had thought he was released a day too late — but it looks like he either already had, or quickly lined up a new deal with PHI so if he does indeed get called up he’d be able to play for them in the playoffs.
Actually the release is not surprising considering there were 8 pitchers in Pawtucket and 6 catchers…..
The Pawtucket “Sim City” games are available online…..Lucroy was getting little to no playing time even in the Sim games….
Lucroy just signed with the Phillies…….maybe the Phillies made their interest known and the Red Sox let him go so he could play in the mlb….
I still can’t believe how quick this guy went from top 2 C in MLB to not worth rostering on a min contact.
He was never top 2. Molina and Posey were always better. Sanchez had one great year too as did Realmuto, but Lucroy was never on my list.
The Red Sox owed $900,000 to Plawecki whether he played in MLB or player pool at Pawtucket, whereas Lucroy would have made I believe the figure was around $2,000,000 be only if he played in the MLB. Considering how tight the RS were to the CBT $2,900,000 vs $900,000 for approximately the same production was an easy choice.
He played with a herniated disk in his neck for 3 years. Had surgery this past offseason. Post-surgery, he hasn’t had the playing time / reps to correct bad habits formed over the years of playing injured.
He was never the same after Jake Marisnick purposely ran into him at the plate.
Why did we sign him? It was clear we had two catchers and we didn’t need him. Still trying to understand Chaim Bloom.
Lucroy was insurance against Vázquez or Plawecki getting hurt. For Lucroy it was a way to stay ready I case some one like the Phillies needed help…..and he had an opt-out as many AAA free agents have…
That didn’t take long. Lucroy has already been signed by the Phillies and placed on their 60-man roster. I’m thinking they did this to prevent any other team in the NL East from signing him.
I think they just have a roster spot to fill. Why would they care if a rival signed a washed up third string catcher?