At the start of the season, the Red Sox’ catching position seemed uncertain at best.
Over the winter, the Red Sox had included Kyle Teel, one of the top catching prospects in the game, in their package to land Garrett Crochet from the Chicago White Sox.
With Teel gone, that left Johanfran Garcia as the next-highest ranked catcher in the organization — labeled as the 31st-best prospect in the organization by SoxProspects.com, and projected to be three or more years away from the big leagues.
At the major league level, the starting job belonged to Connor Wong, but that, too, was problematic. Two years ago, Wong was tasked with improving the offensive side of his game; last fall, the project centered around his blocking and framing skills. With a career WAR of 3.9 after three-plus seasons and his 29th birthday approaching, few saw Wong, the last remaining piece from the abysmal trade of Mookie Betts, as the long-term solution behind the plate.
Enter Carlos Narvaez.
Acquired from the New York Yankees within hours of the team’s swap for Crochet last December, Narvaez didn’t strike many as the answer. Already 25, he had just a half-dozen games of major league experience and he profiled as, at best, a back-up option.
But six months later, that’s all changed. Narvaez has become something of a revelation, and though the Red Sox haven’t conferred the title of No. 1 catcher upon him, he’s surely that, having started 34 of the team’s first 51 games — a distinction that’s only partly aided by Wong missing three weeks with an IL stint.
Among the team’s position players, Narvaez (1.8 WAR) ranks behind only Alex Bregman (2.8) and Rafael Devers (2.0). He sports an .802 OPS and leads American League catchers with eight defensive runs saved.
In caught-stealing, blocks and framing, Narvaez ranks among the 90th percentile or better among all catchers.
Is it possible that the Red Sox have stumbled upon their catcher of the present and future — all in exchange for pitching prospect Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz?
“By all accounts, it’s been a huge success,” said Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow of the acquisition of Narvaez. “Obviously, it’s still really early, but we’re very, very excited about what he’s been able to do. And at least as important to what we’re seeing on the field is how quickly he acclimated to Boston and the way he invests and works with the pitching staff.”
Asked what’s surprised the organization more — Narvaez’s bat, which has Alex Cora contemplating moving him up in the batting order, or his work behind the plate — and Breslow is hard-pressed to choose.
“All the information that we had on him told us that he was a really good defensive catcher,” Breslow said, “and he’s been even better than we thought. But he had a very strong reputation as being a great framer, a great blocker. We’ve seen that. And the throwing’s really improved.
“We didn’t know what we’d get on the offensive side. We felt like there was some upside and he’s worked really, really hard on that. So he deserves a ton of credit there.”
But as Breslow pointed out, what’s hardest to quantify is the relationship that Narvaez has built with the pitching staff. He devoted extra time in spring training to work with each member of the staff, to learn preferences and patterns, and that trust has grown exponentially.
Veteran pitchers from Walker Buehler to Garrett Crochet have praised Narvaez for his preparation and input.
“Carlos has been great,” agreed pitching coach Andrew Bailey. “He’s an elite strike-stealer and pitch framer and he’s learning how to call big league games for the first time. Keeping runs off the board is paramount as a staff, and our catchers have to be a driving force behind doing that. His ability to come in and do what he’s done from a framing standpoint and helping him understand our pitchers’ best stuff, the strides we can make in certain sequencing, can help us.
“To come in with the leadership skills that he’s shown, both internally and on the field, is amazing. He’s been adapting and learning all the time.”
“What you don’t know when you bring in a new voice, a new catcher, is just how the relationship-building with the pitching staff will go. But he has done absolutely everything he could to get to know the pitching group, to understand the repertoire, the profile, and how to make the best pitch use recommendations he can. He’s been really great for us.”
Here, too, Narvaez deserves full credit for putting in the work. He reported to Fort Myers weeks ahead of the start of spring training to watch video and familiarize himself with the staff, accelerating the learning curve so that the acclimation process would be shorter when the pitchers reported.
It helped, too, that new Red Sox catching instructor Parker Guinn, who had worked in the Yankee organization last year and had a relationship with Narvaez, helping to smooth over the onboarding process.
“It was helpful to put the organization in the best place to receive Carlos and Parker having some insight into him was really helpful there,” said Breslow. “But I think we have a really strong catching infrastructure that includes Parker and (Jason Varitek) and (minor league catching coordinator) Tyson Blaser). There’s consistency in the messaging and the programming.”
The return the Red Sox have gotten on the trade with the Yankees was also the byproduct of some good fortune. The Yankees, with Austin Wells having established himself last year, had a surplus of catchers and could afford to move some prospects.
“Carlos didn’t have the clearest path to playing time there, (in New York)” acknowledged Breslow.
Meanwhile, the perfect situation awaited him in Boston. With Teel out of the picture and only journeyman like Blake Sabol and Seby Zavala to beat out in spring training, he was well-positioned.
Then, the broken finger suffered by Wong opened up more playing time once the season began, and to his credit, Narvaez seized the opportunity.
From an offensive standpoint, Breslow has been impressed with he sees as a “calming presence in the (batter’s) box. He’s able to control the strike zone, working deep counts, not really chasing. And when there’s damage to be done on pitches in the zone, he’s hitting it hard (as evidenced by .459 slugging percentage and his 73rd percentile barrel rate).”
Catching is always a highly valued area of any team’s roster, and the early impression is that the Sox may have filled the position for some time to come.
“We’re really excited about what Carlos has done,” said Breslow, ‘and I think what we believe he’s capable of doing. The makeup has been excellent, the investment in the pitching group has been excellent, and so has the performance on both sides of the ball.
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One of issues the Red Sox’ pitching staff has faced this year has been its inability to put away hitters. Earlier this month, and especially on the team’s disastrous road trip to Kansas City and Detroit, it seemed like Cora mentioned this as a determining factor after every loss.
The starters and relievers have both been guilty, and the numbers back up this contention: As a staff, the Red Sox have allowed opposing hitters to bat .232 when Sox pitchers are ahead in the count. That ranks 28th in the game, with only Washington and the historically awful Colorado Rockies ranked behind Boston.
“We always want to have our guys throwing the best pitches at hitters as often as possible,” said Bailey. “There’s some getting back-to-basics there, of using our best whiff pitches in whiff counts when you look at the usage of things. So making some adjustments there from a game-planning standpoint, from a preparation standpoint will bode well moving forward.
“And also execution comes into play, too. Each pitcher has a different skill level on execution on every single pitch type. Someone may be able to command a fastball better than someone else can command a cutter, slider or sweeper. So getting back to the identity of the pitcher on the mound, and what they do really well, can help us move the needle in those areas.”
Bailey is uncertain which is the bigger issue at work here: execution or aggressiveness. Are Red Sox pitchers not finishing off hitters because they’re not locating well enough, or because after getting ahead, they fail to go for the kill?
“I don’t think we ever want to be in a mindset where we’re wasting pitches,” he said. “We definitely want the mindset on attack — if we can limit walks and batted balls in hitter counts, all of those things help us prevent runs. Staying with that mindset of attack, and of course needing the execution, (is critical).”
If nothing else, a more aggressive approach by pitchers helps with efficiency and keeps pitch counts down. Why throw a single extra pitch than necessary if an at-bats can be completed earlier?
Brayan Bello is among those who’s been victimized by his failure to take advantage of leveraged counts. And because Bello lacks, for the most part, swing-and-miss stuff, those prolonged at-bats are more likely to ultimately result in either walks or balls in play.
“You have a contact pitcher who isn’t commanding his pitches and is always walking guys (a 13.5 walk rate, easily the highest of his career),” offered Bailey. “If you have a command guy who doesn’t walk guys, you can live with the batted balls. His identity as a command, ground ball pitcher, for him to get strikeouts, he needs to get to two strikes as often as possible. But the ability to adjust an arsenal to generate in-zone swing-and-miss isn’t super easy — it’s not like you can add swing-and-miss weapons to everybody. That would be pretty great, right?
“So getting back to his identity of being a command pitcher who generates early contact and limiting walks…..what we can’t have is a contact pitcher with an inflated walk rate, because now you’ve got traffic left and right. And when you look at Bello, his identity at the major league level is getting ahead, staying ahead and generating early, weak contact and the innings just kind of roll off the game. We’re going to live and die with his ability to have hitters put the ball in play, because generally speaking, the damage is limited when he’s driving count leverage.
“The command and lack of execution and the inflated walk numbers, or maybe even trying to be someone he’s not is (creating the problems).”
As for Tanner Houck, currently on the IL, the Red Sox need to tweak elements of his repertoire and ensure that he stays out of the middle of the plate.
“He operates in the ‘shadow zones,’ ” said Bailey. “He’s a swing-decisions pitcher — he’s not going to generate a ton of swing-and-miss in the zone; he’s gotta to be in the zone that produce swing decisions. ‘Am I swinging or not swinging?’ He’s going to be relying on called strikes for the most part, and soft ground balls in play, and then we can generate some strikeouts as a result of getting to two strikes.”
