Red Sox’s Emphasis On Improving Pitching Displayed By Catcher Additions

Craig Beslow made clear one of his top priorities upon joining the Red Sox as chief baseball officer in November.

“It’s no secret,” Breslow said at his introductory press conference, ” pitching — specifically starting pitching — is an area of need in this organization.”

Breslow also stressed the importance of building something that can be sustained, with the minor leagues feeding the big league ballclub. In what has been a relatively quiet offseason in terms of player acquisition, as Breslow likes to call it, the addition of three catchers sheds at least some light on Boston’s process for improving its pitching.

The Red Sox on Friday acquired catcher Tyler Heineman from the New York Mets on Friday. Heineman joins Roberto Perez and minor league journeyman Mark Kolozsvary to form a trio of backstops added this winter. The three catchers have varying levels of big league experience but share one thing in common: They’re all well regarded for their ability to handle a pitching staff and/or their defense.

Heineman, is the prototypical pitcher’s catcher, who buys into the analytically driven approach of new-age baseball operations. The Red Sox, led by the Yale-educated Breslow, surely are riding that wave.

In that regard, Heineman will fit right in.

“It’s always been this way, even back in the day,” Heineman told TribLive.com when he was with the Pirates in 2022.

“When a catcher or a pitchign coach said (in the past), ‘Hey, this guy’s not very good on a pitch inside,’ they didn’t have as much analytical data to back that up. They just got with their eyes. … Now they have analyitcal data that says ‘Hey, this guy in this (hitting zone) has a X slug (expected slugging percentage) of .145, which is not good.’ So we can exploit that.”

Obviously, it’s an effective way to win over a staff.

“I’m going to be back there working as hard as I can for them, from pitch one ot the end of the game. That’s how we kind of get on the same page, and they seem to respect that,” he added.

That speaks to another element of team building Breslow stressed.

“It’s really easy to get caught up in trying to find the newest, rightest, most current information,” he said in November, “when it turns out that getting an organization directionally aligned behind something is far more powerful.”

Perez, on the other hand, is a defensive wizard. He has two Gold Glove awards he won with Cleveland in 2019 and 2020. Or, as Giants pitcher said of Perez a year ago when they were with San Francisco, the veteran catcher is a “magician” when it comes to framing.

“It was just like (Yadier Molina) back there,” Giants pitcher Jakob Junis told the Mercury News of his first impressions of Perez as an opponent. “He was very under control. I felt like anything he was putting down, the Cleveland pitchers were just like ‘Yes.’ Total conviction.”

The important, obvious caveat is this: Heineman and Perez — who might not even make the big league roster out of camp — aren’t going to turn fringe big leaguers into front-end starters. The Red Sox still have work to do if they want to accomplish Breslow’s goal. Lucas Giolito is Boston’s lone offseason pickup in the rotation, a move slightly offset by trading Chris Sale.

But go back to 2023, and going into camp with a catching quartet of Reese McGuire, Connor Wong, Jorge Alfaro and Ronaldo Hernandez wasn’t exactly the most pitcher-friendly group. This spring, the staff will have not just better receivers but veterans who understand their battery mates’ objectives and can effectively carry out or communicate the organization’s pitching message.

Whether it’s in Boston or Fort Myers or Worcester, there’s value in that.

Again, there’s still a lot of work to be done, but a clear emphasis on catchers with a certain skill set illustrate the multifaceted process for improving pitching on an organizational level.