One of the biggest questions surrounding the Boston Red Sox heading into the 2019 season is how the catcher situation will be handled.
The Red Sox could carry Blake Swihart, Sandy Leon and Christian Vazquez on the 25-man roster like they did last year, but president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski already revealed the plan was to trade one of the three. Manager Alex Cora also said he’s “comfortable” if and when the team trades one of its backstops.
Opening Day is just mere weeks away and the trio still is in Red Sox uniforms. But Dombrowski said it’s still too early to make a deal.
“You get to the last couple weeks of spring training, that’s when things normally pick up with club conversations. We’re not there yet, Dombrowski said, via The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier. “It’s still a little bit early normally for those types of things to take place. A lot of scouts talk to other scouts at this time, but usually, I find the general manager conversations wait until about two weeks to go. It really hasn’t changed that much.”
As for Cora, he simply said time will tell when it comes to which catcher will get dealt.
“We know all three are good. It doesn’t matter which probably two we take,” he said. “Honestly, it’s not about what they cannot do. We know the three guys. We know what they bring to the table. Last year, we had three and we felt comfortable with it. This year is a different year. Most likely it’s going to be two and we’re going to feel comfortable with it. I don’t think one is better than the other one. They all have their strengths. We know what they can do. It doesn’t matter. Time will let us know what we’re going to do.”
Both Leon and Vazquez have appeared in eight games this spring, while Swihart has played in five. Leon is batting .235 with a home run, Swihart is batting .333 with two RBIs while Vazquez has struggled at the dish with six strikeouts and a .136 average.
