The Red Sox announced Thursday that they’ve formally added catcher Jonathan Lucroy to their 60-man player pool. Lucroy joins the pool as a non-roster player and brings Boston’s total to 48 players (37 members of the 40-man roster and 11 non-roster invitees).
Lucroy, 34, inked a minor league deal with the Red Sox over the winter and reportedly reworked that deal in recent days before being formally added to the player pool. He’ll give the Sox a sixth catcher, joining Christian Vazquez, Kevin Plawecki, Jett Bandy, Juan Centeno and Connor Wong.
The 2019 season marked the third consecutive year of what has been a precipitous decline for Lucroy. Once arguably the game’s best all-around catcher, Lucroy batted just .232/.305/.355 between the Angels and Cubs last season and has posted a tepid .248/.315/.350 slash in 1263 plate appearances since Opening Day 2017. His formerly vaunted pitch-framing skills have taken a nosedive and now rate below the league average, and Lucroy’s caught-stealing rate has dipped since peaking at 39 percent in 2016.
That said, as far as depth options go, there’s plenty of value in bringing a two-time All-Star and 10-year big league veteran into camp to help work with the pitching staff and provide a safety net in the event of injuries elsewhere in the catching corps. Lucroy is also quite familiar with Boston skipper Ron Roenicke, who managed the 2011-15 Brewers when Lucroy was one of the club’s best players.
Great pick up for Boston. Was hoping Yankees consider bringing back Russell Martin for back up catcher
Smart idea!
“Great?”
Willie, when you look at Bloom’s other free agent pickups that include such gems as perez and peraza, comparatively, this is not just great, it looks like one of the all-time best ever coup aquisitions on the level of David Ortiz.
That said, I stick my head in the sand and hope that in a non-cbt nosedive offseason we will see better.
I always liked Lucroy. Rangers picked him up in 2016 for playoff run. Don’t know what happened to his bat after that. Rangers lost confidence in him quickly.
The bat may be gone but all accounts suggest he has great veteran leadership in a dugout. That will be a welcome addition to this young Red Sox team.
While Bloom will not likely do any radical spending, I think Boston might try to compete for a championship in a shortened season with more short inning pitching, when it wouldn’t have as much before because NY and TB have better rosters. It will be a very different and interesting season of baseball.
Very different and interesting but certainly not a season.
oh get over it… I’m as big of a baseball ‘purist’ as they come. In that I don’t want to see the schedule reduced from 162 games because of the implications to potential records etc. This season is what it is… and it’s baseball… and baseball is baseball. So no it may not be the typical “season” but it is still a season and there’s no reason to be negative about it and act like it “isn’t a season” just to dig in about it. Like the situation in the world is what it is… and it won’t be a normal season by a long shot but it IS a SEASON.
Why get over it? This is not baseball with changes to the rosters, only 60 games and the stupid extra inning rule. The beauty of the sport had been the lengthy season over six months. I still believe the Yankees will get to the WS due to their bullpen which will not run out of gas like in other years with the 60 games. I got my MLB.TV refund and will resubscribe next year should normalcy return. I’m not boycotting and will give it a try but living in NY, 25% of the Red Sox schedule will be on YES and SNY. Add in MLB, ESPN, etc and I’ll see the team enough if I choose to watch. I might even listen to the radio feed in bed at night just like when I first started following the team. To me though 2020 if it’s played, will be just a super long exhibition sort of like the World Cup.
I mean yeah, its. a season, in the same way cube steak is a steak.
I agree… while I would say they had no shot of being competitive for a regular 162 game season… given the current situation and that more pitchers on shorter stints will probably be the norm — I definitely think he red Sox have a better chance of competing in this environment than they otherwise would have.
1 MLB quality catcher. 3 retreads and a kid who has played 3y of miLB bal in extremely offensive oriented leagues (Cal and Tex). They could cast off 1, centeno and be fine.
Catching is weakest position in the Sox system, tho they have used multiple picks from rds 2-5 last half dozen years and none have been worth a flip as anything.
They also (very unfortunately) lost a good young catching prospect to cancer a couple of years ago. They had signed a highly regarded prospect during the 2017(?) international signing period — however he wasn’t even able to ever make his professional debut as he passed away from testicular cancer just several months later.
Catching is about … catching. There are so many championships won without an offensive catcher. That said, offense is nice. Vazquez has been inconsistent with the bat but when he hits he contributes. Really much more worried about pitching than … catching.
Vazquez has been fine behind the plate. Not every team has a JTR. Imagine how bad the staff would have looked without him and Leon. Given the rest of the Sox bats, he’s not the problem. He was never expected to be an 8th or 9th hitter.
but an 8th or 9th hitter.
Vasquez was one of the better offensive catchers in the game last year. If he can hit anywhere near where he did a season ago… he’s one of the more complete catchers in baseball. People really seem to be overlooking just how productive he was with the bat last year and I’m not sure why. He hit 20+ HRs and provided a solid average as well. I won’t argue he has been inconsistent in the past. But last year… he was quite effective.
Jeff, I don’t take anyone’s stats from last year seriously without more proof. I’m afraid their going to use the same ball this year to try to generate false excitement but what impressed me about Vazquez was 2018.
I wonder if Lucroy’s “precipitous dive” Has to do with the fact that he is 34 years old? I mean, all sorts of catchers are highly productive at 34, right?
-1.1 bWAR in the last 3 years but let’s pretend he’s still a good player… he may be an ok pickup but that’s more a testament to the severe lack of catching talent these days. He hasn’t been good in years.
If I’m not mistaken the rules for the “taxi-squad” are that of the 3 players traveling with the team one has to primarily be a C… so my guess is that Lucroy will fill this role for the Red Sox (that’s assuming he doesn’t want up making the active roster — which is also possible. However given that Plawecki would have to be exposed to waivers to send him off the active roster… unless the Sox chose to go with 3 catchers on their active roster it seems more likely Lucroy will be the ‘odd man out’ but included on the ‘taxi-squad’