When it became clear that teams like the Cubs and Phillies had put in enticing bids for White Sox ace Garrett Crochet, Boston finally sprung into action, dealing a package headline by top prospect Kyle Teel to secure the southpaw flamethrower.
Crochet is a 25-year-old stud with some more unrealized potential on top of the 2.38 xFIP he produced in 2024. He was always going to cost a lot, and the Red Sox will be a demonstrably better team in 2025 because he’s on their roster. The only issue facing the Red Sox now is that they might not have anyone capable of catching him.
Teel, the 25th-best prospect in baseball according to MiLB.com, has an excellent arm (he caught 38% of attempted base-stealers in his final season in college) and possesses improving framing skills. It would have taken some time, of course, but there was a world in which Teel learned to work in harmony with the major league pitching staff in Boston, deftly handling all the duties of a starting catcher while possessing an above-average bat.
Now, his future lies in Chicago, and Boston’s future at catcher is nowhere to be found. Connor Wong is the holdover starter from the 2024 campaign, and while his bat is impressive for a backstop — .280/.333/.425 slash line, good for a 110 wRC+ — his defensive metrics are anything but. He ranked in the ninth percentile in framing last season, and he was worth a hideous -10 Fielding Run Value (FRV) over 878 ⅓ innings behind the plate. In about 2,000 career innings, he’s accrued -14 FRV.
Luckily, the Red Sox appear to have found their backup backstop in another, lesser-publicized trade from last week, securing Carlos Narváez from the Yankees in exchange for Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, along with some international bonus pool space.
Rodriguez-Cruz is now the 12th-best prospect in the Yankees’ system, which highlights how highly Boston views Narváez. The 26-year-old catcher posted a meager 72 wRC+ in his cup of coffee with the Yankees at the end of the 2024 season, though that was in just a minuscule 15 plate appearance sample size. He posted a .782 OPS (108 wRC+) in 96 games at Triple-A, and he’s well-regarded behind the dish, especially for his strong arm.
But, again, he’s a backup until proven otherwise. And both he and Wong (28) are in or approaching their late-20s. Neither is going to replace what Teel supposedly brings to the table.
Where else can Boston turn for their catcher of the future?
Well, you can forget the free agent market. Danny Jansen (Rays), Carson Kelly (Cubs), Travis d’Arnaud (Angels), Kyle Higashioka (Rangers), and Gary Sanchez (Orioles) all signed already, and they, along with every notable free agent catcher still available, are in their 30s.
As a short-term fix, perhaps a defense-first option like Tucker Barnhart or Martin Maldonado could make for a good band-aid, but that doesn’t solve the larger problem in the organization sans Teel.
The trade market does have better prospects, if only by default. The Pirates are loaded with high-upside options — former top prospect Joey Bart, former first overall pick Henry Davis, well-regarded youngster Endy Rodríguez — but none are proven options that all come with serious warts.
The Cardinals would surely love to get out from under Willson Contreras’s contract, but his already-meh defense is only declining as he ages, not improving. Would the Braves be willing to move Sean Murphy for a huge return? Maybe the Phillies will make J.T Realmuto available, though he’s already 33 and will hit free agency after next season.
The point of this exercise is not to paint a doom-and-gloom picture about the long-term situation behind the dish in Boston. It’s simply to prove that Teel, who is no sure thing himself, is immensely valuable precisely because of how rare it is to find a legitimate two-way catcher. The cost for Crochet was always going to sting, and the White Sox were smart to target a player who can be their answer at catcher for the next half-decade or longer.
How the Red Sox respond to losing him could define not just their 2025 season, but the foreseeable future in Boston too.