TORONTO, ON - MAY 11: Blake Swihart #23 of the Boston Red Sox looks on as he warms up during batting practice before the start of MLB game action against the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre on May 11, 2018 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Blake Swihart
ST. PETERSBURG, FL – MARCH 28: Blake Swihart #23 of the Boston Red Sox reacts during a team workout before Opening Day on March 28, 2018, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. (Photo by Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images) /
A former top prospect, Blake Swihart may be seeing his time with the Boston Red Sox come to an end. His agent has asked for a trade, and the team has a roster crunch on the horizon.
He cracked the majors in 2015 at the age of 23 after injuries to Christian Vazquez and Ryan Hanigan. His promotion was probably at least a year too early, and he struggled at the plate. At first.
His wRC+ in May of that year was just 39. It jumped to 86 in June, then 90 in July before exploding to 159 in August. It returned to Earth in September, leveling off at 95, but for a rushed catching prospect to show that kind of improvement month to month for most of the season was incredibly encouraging. So what happened?
When Christian Vazquez returned from Tommy John surgery, the team decided that he was the guy. With Sandy Leon on the roster, it was easiest to option Swihart and retain as much catching depth as possible. He likely needed more development time anyway.
But injuries struck again, this time to the outfield and Swihart (and his supreme athleticism) was moved to the outfield and called up again. Not long after that he crashed into the wall in left field and tore up his ankle. His 2016 season was over, and that injury would leave him with lingering pain through most of the following year as well.
TORONTO, ON – MAY 11: Blake Swihart #23 of the Boston Red Sox looks on as he warms up during batting practice before the start of MLB game action against the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre on May 11, 2018, in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Blake Swihart /
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.
Life isn’t always fair.
In short, he hasn’t gotten a fair shake, and his 7 OPS+ certainly isn’t doing anything to force the issue. But it’s an incredibly tough role to thrive in. Even Dave Dombrowski understands that:
“It’s a tough role, we know it, but it’s not like if we went and moved him off and put somebody else on that, that other person would be playing a great deal,” said Dombrowski. “They really wouldn’t be playing at that point. With the flexibility that we have, with (Brock) Holt and (Eduardo) Nunez both, now when (Dustin Pedroia) comes back, which I anticipate sometime in a couple weeks — I don’t have the exact time, but he’s making significant strides — we’ll have to make a move at that point and we’ll see where it takes us.”
This would be a minor issue if the team had a catcher who was hitting. After all, Blake Swihart wouldn’t be the first prospect to have his career derailed by injuries and struggle to find playing time at the major league level. But the team is running Christian Vazquez and his 19 OPS+ out there alongside Sandy Leon with a 22.
That’s right… their best hitting catcher is still 78% worse than league average. It’s one thing to have one noodle-bat at catcher, but when both are looking up at the Mendoza line, something’s got to give.
The Red Sox are making history, but not the good kind.
Out of curiosity, I decided to check to see how often in MLB history a player of any kind has been allowed to amass even 300 plate appearances in a season while sporting an OPS+ lower than Leon’s current figure. The answer is just six times. And catcher Bill Bergen is two of them. He is also the most recent, just a few years ago in ‘09. 1909. In fact, he’s the only one of the group not to have done so in the 1800’s.
Quite simply, what the Red Sox are trotting out in either catcher spot on the 25 man roster is historically bad. To be doing so twice in the same season is unfathomable. Now, again, Swihart’s OPS+ is just seven so far. But his career OPS+ is 84 which includes a 2017 stint while still recovering from a terrible ankle injury. And yes, Christian Vazquez just posted a season where his OPS+ was 90, but there wasn’t any reason to assume that was a new baseline, despite what some thought. Even with the outlier year, his career rate is 69 and Leon’s is 73. He, too, had a massive outlier year at one point.
Neither has shown signs that their outliers were anything other than deviations from their norms, however, and we are left with an untenable situation at catcher while a former top catching prospect is wasting away looking for an opportunity to contribute.
Reasons to believe in Blake Swihart’s glove.
Now, there’s another side to the argument, and no matter how you slice it, it’s one in which both Vazquez and Leon come out ahead. No one is going to argue that Blake Swihart is an above average or better defender.
He’s never shown that despite his 2013 minor league defensive player of the year award. But there’s also no reason to assume that with regular reps behind the plate he couldn’t be something in the neighborhood of league average with the glove.
Given how fast the league has caught up with catcher framing, it would seem safe to assume that it is a teachable skill. So if he is deficient there, it should be correctable. He rated pretty well as a framer and through Fangraphs’ metrics in 2015 at any rate. Some have lauded Christian Vazquez and Sandy Leon for their game calling, and that’s fair.
But again, it’s something that is addressable. Even if Swihart isn’t capable of learning to be as good as either, it’s something that can be supplemented via signaling from the bench. We know that Swihart has a strong arm.
We also know that he has been praised for his work ethic and makeup (see the Fangraphs link in the previous paragraph as well). And he received high marks for leadership while in the minors as. In short, there is no reason to assume that he would be a terrible defender or that he couldn’t take on a leadership role as Vazquez has. And here’s the kicker, the team doesn’t even have to choose between Vazquez and Swihart. They could DFA Sandy Leon and likely wouldn’t miss a beat.
BOSTON – MAY 16: Boston Red Sox utility player Blake Swihart, left, waits for his turn in the cage during batting practice before the start of the game. Manager Alex Cora is in the background at right. The Boston Red Sox host the Oakland Athletics in a regular season MLB baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston on May 16, 2018. (Photo by Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) /
A better path forward.
If Blake Swihart is even close to a league average hitter, splitting the duties with Vazquez would give them their strong defensive side of a catching platoon with a bat that doesn’t leave Sox fans cringing at as they walk up to the plate in a close and late situation.
Yes, losing Leon feels a bit frightening given the dearth of catching prospects in the minors, but Leon’s OPS+’s at the major league level since the start of the 2014 season are 25, 20, 122, 67 and 22.
Seems like a pretty good bet he is what he looks like at this point. And chances are Dan Butler wouldn’t be much worse (if even that bad) should he need to be called up because of an injury.
Dustin Pedroia is almost ready to return. When he does, someone has to go from the 25 man roster. DFAing or trading Blake Swihart for a bag of balls is likely what Dombrowski will do.
But given his pedigree, I’d much rather see the team give him a shot at the short side of a platoon and cut bait with Leon. It’s a step down defensively, but it could be a significant step up at the plate.
And if Swihart is more what he was projected to be (above average), that step up could be massive. He was once called Buster Posey-lite. Let’s see what he can do before giving up on him.
