TODAY: MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo reports that the Red Sox are granting Alfaro his release. Going forward, Alfaro figures to re-enter the free agent market as a quality depth option for catching-needy clubs.
June 1: Veteran catcher Jorge Alfaro has exercised an opt-out in his minor league deal with the Red Sox and is planning to test free agency, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. The Red Sox technically have 48 hours to add Alfaro to the roster before granting him his release. However, manager Alex Cora expressed comfort with current backstops Connor Wong and Reese McGuire last night and implied that the Sox weren’t likely to make any changes behind the plate, so it makes sense that Alfaro will explore other opportunities after a strong start to his season in Triple-A.
Alfaro, 30 next week, has gotten out to a hefty .320/.366/.520 start in Worcester this season. He’s connected on six homers, 13 doubles and even a pair of triples, adding a perfect 4-for-4 in stolen base attempts as well. Despite that hot start, Cora’s comments last night seem to suggest that Alfaro’s next big league opportunity won’t come with the Red Sox — at least not at this time. An injury in the next couple days could change that, but otherwise he appears quite likely to return to the market and look for an opportunity elsewhere.
The combination of Wong and McGuire have provided passable offense despite bloated strikeout rates, with McGuire’s sky-high BABIP in particularly making him something of a regression candidate. That duo hasn’t provided the defensive value the Sox hoped entering the season, however. McGuire is just 1-for-22 in terms of halting stolen bases, while Wong ranks among baseball’s worst pitch framers and pitch blockers, per Statcast.
Alfaro is just 5-for-35 in throwing out opposing baserunners this season, but Baseball Prospectus gives him average grades in terms of both pitch framing and pitch blocking. Alfaro doesn’t have a strong big league track record either defensively or offensively — he’s a career .256/.305/.396 hitter in the Majors — but there are so many teams in search of catching help that he could quickly find another opportunity elsewhere. Speculatively speaking, the Guardians and Padres are among the postseason hopefuls receiving negligible contributions behind the plate in 2023, but there are certainly other clubs that could take a look if (or perhaps when) Alfaro returns to the market.
Dodgers need to replace Barnes
I’d bet Alfaro signs a deal with the padres by days end. He loved it here. Deuces, Nola.
I agree Alfaro will be a Padre within 72 hours although Padres have dug themselves a pretty big hole.
Sure have. But this team is too good to be bad an entire season. Expect a big boost when Manny comes back and then again at the deadline.
Sign me up for this thought as well. DFA Cruz and use him for DH.
I would sign Alfara and move out Nola and Sanchez
Sanchez hit his 2nd HR today and has thrown out a runner – not the long term solution but is worth keeping around another week.
Nola – the pitchers seem to like working with him so he isn’t going anywhere – yet.
DFA Cruz for the roster spot and allow Alfaro and Sanchez to DH with some Carp mixed in (for now).
They have enough time to recover for a wild card spot, but I doubt they’ll catch the Dodgers for the division.
I correctly picked the Dbacks as a contender last Winter. Four teams for three wild cards, Mets, Padres, Dbacks and Phils. Central division it is win it or go home no wild cards there.
Have you seen the Dodgers record over past 20 games and the state of their rotation?
Yeah, Padres need to get on a winning streak but a 15-5 20 game streak puts them right back in striking distance.
To say the dodgers are too far away is ignoring the facts. This is not 2020, 2021 or 2022.
This is the only reason the Padres might consider keeping Cruz around. .300/.313/.467/.779 with RISP
He did hit .128 in May, so maybe that is not enough
If you have watched the games you would see that he is striking out on pitches a foot off the plate. Those stats were April – which he was doing well for about 2 weeks. Pitchers realized he swings at every non-fastball that breaks off the plate so no reason to throw him a strike. I had high hopes but I think misplaced.
Sanchez DH today.. already has 2 HR in 3 GA es with Pads..and today had a single also for 3 RBI game and a Series W vs the Fish
Gary Sanchez had a .880 OPS with RISP in 2022..
And is a career .813 OPS dude for his entire career… say what you want about his C skills . But he can DH for any team with those “clutch” stats
Even with the Dodgers rotation beat up they are still are playing above .500 baseball.
Their last 20 games they are 12-8 and includes a sweep of the Padres.
Zerb, that is correct and if the Padres were to go 15-5 while Dodgers maintained 12-8, near the end of June Padres would be 4.0 back of Dodgers.
I don’t think anyone believes that 4.0 back is “too far” behind any team in the NL in 2023. My only point was the 2023 Dodgers are not as likely to do what they did in previous years and run away with the division in June.
My point does require the Padres to play to their “on paper” capabilities which of course is also yet to he seen. But, it is very reasonable to think at some point the offense is going to come around so, a 15-5 stretch with Padres pitching is not unreasonable to project.
I don’t mean to say the Dodgers aren’t playing better than Padres – obvious – just that it ain’t over in June like it was last year with this Dodger lineup.
Rather see Alfaro and his former top prospect pedigree behind the dish than Barnes any day
Roberts loves Barnes so he’s likely not going anywhere. Back to the Padres maybe, or Cleveland since the Guardians haven’t gotten any production from their Catchers
Roberts doesn’t make the roster decisions. Friedman traded Kershaw’s friend and personal catcher (AJ Ellis) a few years ago to improve at catcher. Barnes defense has declined, he has never been able to throw out runners, and his pitch framing is now considered average (according to advanced metrics). And, as Tommy Lasorda said, he can’t hit water if he fell out of a boat.
Guardians like defensive catchers, so Sanchez and Alfaro need not apply.
He’ll get a deal fast
If Sanchez can get a job, An actual Catcher should have no problem. Guess June 1st is take out your trash day in Baseball AND Football.
Alfaro is exactly what the Dodgers need in place of Barnes. Trade Barnes to the Rays who desperately need a catcher who can block pitches instead of waiting until they stop rolling at the backstop.
Totally agree. Barnes is 7-73 on the season (.096 BA), and Trayce Thompson had 4 hits in the month of May. At what point do you pull the chain on these guys? Alfaro is about league average defensively, but at least he can hit.
Come home, to San Diego!
By days end Tom. He’s coming home!
Article says Sox have 48 hours so unless there is a waiver process for that, it might be Saturday for him to suit up as DH in SD. I see Cruz as the DFA candidate for a spot.
Morejon looks close to coming back and also Manny! Could be a fun weekend in SD.
LFGSD
I do concur LFGSD!
Smart move by Alfaro. Get as far away from bloom , cora and their hot mess as you can.
Yup
He signed with Boston, You think he wants to get away from Bloom? He wants to get away from Worcester.
He signed with bloom back when it was going to be “awesome” lmao
He signed with Bloom when no other ML Team offered him a major league deal.
He signed with Bloom because it probably offered him the best path back to the pros, with Wong & McGuire the only guys in front of him.
Padres should scoop him back without question. He was a fan favorite also and has great hair!
Great walk up music, too
The red sox could still add him to the mlb rostor and this a non issue
That ship sailed on May 30th.
Considering Jason Delay is the offensive catcher in Pittsburgh, I’d be OK with him as a Buc.
Alfaro definitely belongs on an MLB roster. It’s too bad there is no room for him in Boston. He has a great bat (when he makes contact) and he’d be a fan favorite in Fenway. If McGuire didn’t bat LH, I would definitely swap Alfaro for McGuire but having the LH bat is important to Cora & team. Hate to see him go!
Dotty – Did you read the above article? Wong is among the worst in framing and blocking, while Alfaro is average. Combine that with the offensive comparison, I say move down Wong and give Alfaro a chance.
Fever- They like Wong. He’s been taken under Variteks wing since he’s new to catching and only done it full time since 2021. He’s also got the 4th highest defensive bwar in the AL along with a 85th percentile pop time and rocket arm that brings him to 3rd most Caught stealing in AL
Not to mention Wong is under team control through 2028, It obviously makes sense to try and develop him. This team isn’t winning anything. Play the young guys.
rsfan – New to catching? I’m positive when he was acquired in 2020 he was referred to as a catcher.
And sure enough, he caught 83 games in 2019 and 71 games in 2018 and 89 games in 2017.
Fever- he was not a full time catcher until 2021 he split his time with the dodgers between 2nd and catching
That’s a possibility too, but Cora seems to love Wong and he comes up with big hits for the team from time to time as well. I don’t see them sending him down to AAA, but you do make a good point!
This is the same as the folks that wanted Bello & Casas demoted. It ain’t happening. I was among those that wanted Alfaro on the team and Wong in the minors. I am glad to admit that I was wrong.
To me a catcher’s most important job is getting his pitchers to trust him and want to throw to him. I’m not sure what Conner Wongs catcher ERA is but Sale seems to want to throw to him and pitchers in general seem to like to throw to him. Not everyone is JT Realmuto or Adley Rutschman I think they are just fine with Wong.
Wong 4.07 CERA. McGuire 5.68 CERA
Joe – It actually DID happen with Bello. He was optioned April 24th, and was called back up later only because of Whitlock’s injury. The demotion did him good: nesn.com/2023/05/this-lit-a-fire-under-red-sox-sta…
I’m almost tempted to break my no-bet rule with regard to Casas, because he certainly seems headed for a demotion after another pathetic performance tonight. He now has a .570 OPS over his last 15 games, he is NOT showing improvement.
Like I said, Wong’s hitting is fine. It’s his defense that is substandard.
But is Wongs defense really that bad he controls the running game and pitchers on the Sox pitch better when throwing to him so I call BS on this.
Bruin – Either you trust Statcast or you don’t.
I don’t agree with that. I think statcast is pretty good for outfield defense and most infield defense.
I think it falls short in a couple of areas and that is at first base and at catcher. IMO the biggest defensive job of a first baseman digging poor throws out of the dirt and avoiding throwing errors from other fielders and to my knowledge statcast doesn’t track that.
The biggest job a catcher has is getting the confidence of your pitchers to trust you can call a good game and want to throw to you then control the running game then blocking balls in the dirt and lastly framing.
I think it’s not as simple as trusting statcast or not. I think trusting statcast for say a center fielder is a lot easier and cleaner. I don’t trust statcast at all for catcher and first base.
The cERA and the OPSa largely favors Wong. For the most part, I don’t trust defensive stats on anything less than a three-year basis, but the YTD numbers look okay.
Bruin – I agree with you, defensive stats are not very reliable and a pitcher’s success and comfortableness with a particular catcher goes a long way in determining how good the catcher is defensively. I pointed out many times in the past how several pitchers had much worse numbers when throwing to Vaz, and they clearly didn’t like having him behind the plate (ie: Eovaldi, Sale, etc).
Bottom line, I think Alfaro deserves a shot.
It is surprising to me that it is a manager would decides who gets called up or not. Maybe it’s normal, I don’t know. But to me contracts are a GM thing and huge contracts are a PBO/Owner thing
It’s not a Red Sox issue from what I see, it seems to be happening more and more around the league.
I prefer the old days when it was the GM who signed the staff and the manager who managed who he was given.
The way it is now seems to be too many chefs in the kitchen
So where are the Chihuahuas playing and how soon before Alfaro is on a flight there?
DFA Cruz and goes straight to SD for the weekend.
Call up Alfaro immediately.
Can we talk about just how bad some of the trades the marlins made with a pretty strong group of players. This guy was a part of a deal (albeit not the headline) for JT. That trade has been a train wreck for the marlins. They traded an MVP away for basically nothing, fans claim it was good deal to rid of a contract but I call cap cause the return hasn’t produce hardly any value. Then they traded away a future mvp to the brewers for not much? Maybe I’m missing someone but pretty sure that ended up a mess. Best deal they got was trading Ozuna which ultimately produced a cy young, but because all their other deals were so bad they were unable to put together a reasonable team around him and actually do something positive as a team. It’s just wild to think of the talent they had and what they were unable to turn it into
Prospects are prospects for a reason – most don’t pan out at the MLB level. The guys the Marlins traded weren’t cheap on salary either for acquiring teams so that also has to factor in to the Marlins’ returns.
Then they traded away a future mvp to the brewers for not much? Maybe I’m missing someone but pretty sure that ended up a mess. Best deal they got was trading Ozuna which ultimately produced a cy young,
=============================
I think that is the crux of it right there.
They traded a future MVP for a future CY.
Unless you add up all the players, you don’t get a true view. Which group would you prefer:
Realmuto, Stanton, Ozuna & Yelich, for a combined $88M & 2.8 bWAR
or
Alcantara & Chisholm?
That’s what it boils down to.
Cruz is headed for the Mexican league. No time like the present. Alfaro led the Padres in walk offs last year and the fans did like him. And his Mom too.
Now that Sugar Azocar has been sent down to minors we need Alfaro has a speed option
Guess this guy isnt in such great demand after all…its been 5 days..is there some waiting period?