Article: Red Sox Catchers Are Stepping Up When They're Needed Most

[Brandon Glick]

It's been a pretty tumultuous September for the Boston Red Sox, as they've lost series to the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Yankees while slipping from the top Wild Card seed in the American League to the third. They still hold the second-best run differential in the Junior Circuit at +90 and a 2.5-game lead over the Cleveland Guardians for the final playoff spot in the AL, but this team is hardly making it easy.

Still, they've won games when they've absolutely had to, like when they salvaged the finale of the Diamondbacks and Yankees series to avoid being swept. It might not be pretty, but the Red Sox still have the inside track on making the postseason.

Part of that is thanks to steady contributions from regulars like Jarren Duran and some brilliant work by Garrett Crochet, Connelly Early, and Lucas Giolito in the rotation, but the truth is the Sox are staying afloat thanks to their suddenly-brilliant catching tandem. Since Sept 1. (13 games), among Red Sox players with at least 10 plate appearances, Carlos Narváez ranks second in OPS (.940), while his much-maligned backup, Connor Wong, ranks fourth (.938). Wong has actually been better in terms of wRC+ (160), ranking second behind only Nate Eaton (Narváez ranks fourth with a 152 wRC+).

Narváez is hardly an unknown commodity around these parts, as Talk Sox has been singing the rookie backstop's praises all year long. He was mired in a nasty slump in July (54 wRC+) and August (64 wRC+), but he's seemingly rebounded and found his best form at the plate in September. Considering that he effectively became the catcher of the future after being acquired in a low-stakes deal following the team's decision to part with Kyle Teel in the Crochet blockbuster, it's pretty awe-inspiring how good Narváez has been. This most recent stretch is perhaps his most promising -- he's hitting .294/.351/.588 this month with a team-leading .294 ISO -- especially in the face of the adjustments he's had to make to recover from his months-long cold stretch.

Wong, on the other hand, has not been anyone's favorite Red Sox player this year. He's been a mess at the plate (.204/.270/.255) and has been routinely floated as a DFA candidate if the team could ever find a more suitable backup catcher. However, that never came to pass, and now, Boston is reaping the benefits. In an admittedly small sample in September, the five-year MLB veteran is hitting .357/.438/.500 with a 12.5% walk rate. Yes, we're only talking about 16 plate appearances, but his two extra-base hits (both doubles) are already one-third of his total prior to September. Wherever his fence-clearing power has gone, Wong is starting to make this version of himself work in the batter's box.

The fun news is that the batted ball metrics generally support the results. Both catchers' slash lines are being carried by unusually high BABIPs (.455 for Wong, .364 for Narváez), but that isn't totally a smoke-and-mirrors act.

Wong's ground-ball rate is a comical 54.5% -- and it's been near that rate all year, hence his absentee home run pop -- but he's pulling the ball at a team-leading rate (54.5% as well), and he has yet to make soft contact this month. His 36.4% hard-hit rate is his highest in a month since April, and it helps that he's seeing 4.313 pitches per plate appearance, up from 3.93 in the first half. Sure, it'd be nice to see him elevate the ball once in a while, but a backup catcher playing average defense (-1 DRS in 419.0 innings this season) can get by as a hitter who works the count and gets on base.

Narváez has been a tad more impressive down the stretch, despite pulling the ball just 25% of the time this month (last on the Red Sox). His 41.7% hard-hit rate ranks third on the team among all hitters with at least 10 PAs, and his 37.5% fly-ball rate is his best since June. Considering that he might be a Gold Glove finalist as a rookie (12 DRS behind the plate in 889.0 innings), it's hard to complain about the contributions coming from Narváez at the moment.

With Roman Anthony out for the rest of the regular season, the Red Sox were always going to need their role players to step up in order to maintain their place in the American League hierarchy. The recent struggles of Alex Bregman, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Nathaniel Lowe aren't helping the cause, but unexpected rebounds from Wong and Narváez certainly are. Can they continue to produce like this in October? Barring a miraculous return from Anthony, the answer to that question could decide the team's postseason fate.

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[moonslav59]

I may be going out on a limb, but Narvaez is a keeper.

Wong's D has improved, but he needs to hit over .680-.700 to be barely a plus.

[TedYazPapiMookie]

Robert, can we be confident in Narvaez performing in the future?

Let's look at Wong first.  He was a mediocre catcher (ranked 6th in the depth chart at the start of 2020) after three seasons in LA so it cost Friedman nothing to include him in the ridiculous deal for Mookie.

In 2021, after COVID. he hit .256 in AAA for Boston.  As a back-up catcher his numbers were solid but clearly, he wasn't a starting catcher.  In 2022 he hit .288 at AAA which led Boston to think he could be a MLB catcher but when promoted he flopped hitting .188.  In 2023, he proved to be the back-up catcher that his career suggested and finished with a .235 average.  In 2024, he broke out with a career year hitting nearly 50 points higher than any other MLB season.  Boston fans said we had our future catcher while I argued his one-time wonder season didn't reflect his real skills.  There would be a big regression in 2025.  His 2025 numbers are .204/270/.255/.525 proving the regression was EXACTLY what happened.  Does a leopard change his spots?  NOPE.  Wong at best is a journeyman back-up catcher or maybe a career minor leaguer depending on 2026.

Carlos Narvaez is another pre-COVID catcher.  For the Yankees he played in 2017 to 2019 and provided mediocre hitting around .250 at the lowest levels of the minors.  He took off 2020 like most minor league players and came back in 2021 and had yet another mediocre season at best.  In 2022, he played ONLY at Hi-A at age 22 and hit .194 leading the Yankees to consider DFAing him.  In 2023 he went to Venezuela's Winter League where he continued to be average at best.  At AA and AAA in 2023 he hit .235 and .240.  Allowing him to barely hang on to a spot in the Yankee farm system.  In 2024, he played at AAA and hit a mediocre .254 and got promoted to the Yankees for 6 games in September.  He hit .231 in those 6 games further showing his mediocrity as a hitter but his strength was always defense not offense.

In December Boston acquired him and he went back to the Venezuela Winter league and showed signs of life on offense hitting .377 in 24 games.  That was over 100 points higher than any other season.  Then, in 2025 he shocked everyone by hitting .273 in the first half of the season.  I explained at the time that we had a lot of over performing players that would regress, and they did.  In the second half Narvaez is hitting .192.  The good news is in September he's hitting a respectable .263 after being under .200 the previous two months.

So, with no prior history of success at hitting much like Wong last year, do you really think Narvaez will be an adequate hitter to start in 2026?  He's a great back-up catcher since he's so outstanding on defense but don't we need a catcher that is good on offense and defense like Teel?  I can see Wong being DFA's in 2026 and Narvaez being the back-up catcher, but can we really take the chance that he will suddenly hit again rather than copy the history of Wong not being able to repeat his career year?

Without Teel in the farm system, Boston needs to find a new long-term catching solution this off-season.  I think the odds of Narvaez being anything more than a back-up in 2026 is low.  Boston could force it and find out it's not the answer in 2026, but a smart GM would plan for finding a better solution for a team that should compete for the Division title.

 

[moonslav59]

Narvaez had decent numbers on the farm and actually saw his OBP improve from A+ to AA to AAA. His AA sample size is tiny, and his SLG improved from A+ to AAA.

His AAA sample size is 762 PAs, and he was largely viewed as a "defensive first catcher," but maybe the short-changed his offense profile. A .371 OBP is very nice and his winter ball numbers (90 PAs) were off the charts good. While OBP is hard to translate to the bigs, sometimes it does. Narvaez has a .315 OBP, this year, which is not great or even good, but it's not horrific for a first year catcher.

Now, about his power: his A+ SLG was .391 and his AAA was .400. Neither is great and might indicate that his .426 MLB SLG is not to be something we can expect going forward. Nevertheless, his MLB sample size is now over 420 PAs. He hit 21 HRs and 33 2Bs in 762 PAs, which comes to about 19 HRs and 26 2Bs per 660 PAs. That's not great either, but it's pretty good, and for a catcher, it's pretty decent.

In 2025, within the context of catchers in MLB, he is currently ranked out of 34 Catchers with 250+ PAs...

2nd DRS +12

9th in fWAR at 2.9

10th in ISO at .184

14th in OPS at .746 (16th in OBP and 11th in SLG)

14th in wRC+ at 102

He's certainly been a top tier catcher (top 15 out of 30.) One could argue he's top 10 out of 30 FT Catchers.

The MLB league averages for catchers are...

-3 DRS

.307 OBP

.394 SLG

.701 OPS

.156 ISO

(This counts all back up catchers.)