The Boston Red Sox entered the season with high expectations, but they also came in with a problem — one that has the potential to derail their promising season. The problem: catcher, the second-most important position on the baseball field.
The Red Sox’s regular starting catcher, Connor Wong, came to the Red Sox as a minor league prospect in the controversial 2020 trade that sent 2018 American League MVP Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers. He emerged as Boston’s top catching choice in 2023, when he played 126 games.
But it last season that Wong emerged as a force on offense, hitting 13 home runs and stealing eight bases, placing him just one behind the Milwaukee Brewers’ William Contreras for the MLB lead among catchers.
Wong, however, was a defensive liability. With Wong’s negative defensive runs saved number of 14, according to Fangraphs, Boston catching ranked 27th out of 30 teams in the Fangraphs power rankings.
A new trade proposal by the X (formerly Twitter) account Red Sox Payroll, affiliated with the SoxProspects.com site, solves the Boston catching problem, while also addressing another issue: how to get the organization’s No. 3 prospect Marcelo Mayer, a shortstop Boston took with the fourth overall pick in the 2021 draft, to the big leagues.
Despite a torrid spring in which the 22-year-old Mayer posted a .982 OPS with 12 hits and eight walks in 44 plate appearances, the Chula Vista, California, native was sent down to the Red Sox Triple-A affiliate in Worcester, Massachusetts.
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The reason: Veteran Trevor Story, in the fourth year of his six-year, $140 million contract, has a monopoly on the shortstop position — at least as long as he stays healthy. In the first three years of his contract, Story has managed to play in only 163 of 486 possible games, including only 26 last season, a career low.
According to the trade idea, the Red Sox would send Story — who is still owed $50 million in addition to his $22.5 million this season — to the Atlanta Braves in exchange for sixth-year veteran catcher Sean Murphy, who was slowed by injury last year but was an All-Star the previous season with 21 home runs and an .844 OPS.
Murphy is under contract for three more years at a total cost of $45 million. Defensively, Murphy was good for four defensive runs saved, per Fangraphs, in limited action last year, and eight in 2023.
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“Murphy likely holds more value than Story so Boston likely has to eat some cash or add on their side,” the Red Sox Payroll account wrote. “But (the) basic idea is to swap these two and their contracts.”
The Braves have their No. 1 overall prospect, Drake Baldwin, who can immediately step in behind the plate if Murphy is traded. Atlanta could use a shake-up of some sort. Prior to Friday’s games, the Braves were the last winless team in MLB at 0-7.
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