Boston Red Sox: Don’t trade Blake Swihart, play him!

Finally healthy again…

It wasn’t until this past winter that Blake Swihart started talking about feeling healthy again. And it showed in the Dominican Winter League with a .997 OPS over nine games. He carried that momentum into Spring Training for his first seven games. On the morning of March 5, 2018, Swihart was sitting on a slash of .429/.500/.810 with 1 HR and 8 RBI.

For lingering fans of the nearly forgotten prospect, there was hope that the bat-first catcher they’d been dreaming of since the 2011 draft was still in there somewhere. But he would cool and finish Spring Training with a .771 OPS.

In the meantime, the Red Sox decided that the duo of Christian Vazquez and Sandy Leon was their best bet to start the season and Swihart was tucked away at the end of the bench. Hot starts from Mitch Moreland and Hanley Ramirez, coupled with J.D. Martinez’s presence in the lineup meant that there were no opportunities for him to crack the lineup with any regularity. The team has also been reluctant to try him outside of first base or left field.

And so, of his 15 appearances in games, seven of them have been as a pinch hitter or pinch runner. Only one of those included any time at catcher, and that was in the 8th inning on May 8 when Marcus Walden came into pitch, and Christian Vazquez was taken out of the game.