Bold Red Sox Trade Idea Solves Catching Woes by Reunion With World Series Champ

Thanks to some aggressive offseason moves, and several years of productive drafts and player development at the minor league level, the Boston Red Sox have depth at almost every position on the field. One of the most glaring exceptions is behind the plate.

The Red Sox’s lack of catching depth was cast into the spotlight Monday when regular starter Connor Wong got his glove in the way of Toronto Blue Jays slugger George Springer’s bat, getting called for catcher’s interference — and fracturing his glove-hand pinky finger in the process.

Wong’s defensive liabilities were a concern for the Red Sox even before the injury that put the 28-year-old on the injured list, as reflected in his Fangraphs defensive runs saved number of -11 for his five-year career (including this season).

Wong’s injury elevated backup Carlos Narvaez to the starter’s role, and prompted the Red Sox to call up offseason minor league free agent acquisition Blake Sabol to take the second-string backstop role. But Narvaez has a Fangraphs DRS number of just one in 12 major league starts.

Sabol caught 63 games for the San Francisco Giants, but according to Fangraphs cost his team seven runs in that short stint.

On Monday, a writer for the baseball analysis site PitcherList proposed a solution to the Red Sox catching woes: Bring back the catcher from their now-iconic 2018 team, which set a record for wins by a Red Sox team with 108 and won the World Series in five games over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

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Christian Vázquez was traded by the Red Sox at the 2022 trade deadline for then minor-leaguers Enmanuel Valdez and Wilyer Abreu. In the following offseason, he signed a three-year, $30 million contract with the Minnesota Twins. But that contract is in its final season, making Vázquez a prime trade candidate.

The PitcherList scribe, who writes under the byline G.G., proposed sending receiver Josh Winckowski to the Twins in exchange for Vázquez, along with cash considerations.

The Red Sox acquired Winckowski from the New York Mets farm system in 2021 in a three-team trade that sent former Red Sox first-round draft pick Andrew Benintendi — also a starting player on the 2018 Red Sox team — to the Kansas City Royals.

Defensively, Vázquez rates as far better than either Narvaez or Sabol. Per Fangraphs, he has posted only one negative DRS number for a season — oddly enough the 2018 campaign, and then only a minus-1.

But for his career he has saved his teams 61 runs.

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