Grading The 2025 Boston Red Sox: Catchers

Much like the Boston Red Sox will be doing over the next few weeks in their internal evaluations, it's time to look back on the roster and see if players lived up to their expectations, exceeded them or fell flat. To start, we're going to look back upon the season the Boston Red Sox's catchers had in 2025.

Overall, it was a rather good season for Boston backstops, as the Red Sox's main catching tandem stayed mostly healthy throughout the season. They only had one stint on the injured list, when Connor Wong fractured his pinkie on April 8 against the Toronto Blue Jays. He would go on to miss nearly a month, but then backup Carlos Narváez stepped up and won the starting spot for himself. Despite that, the second half saw a falloff in production from Narváez as he dealt with his own minor injury.

Carlos Narváez: B+

Narváez earns a B+ for his season due to the fact he completely shattered expectations, and if it weren't for an end-of-season slump that can be attributed to fatigue and a small injury, he would have easily earned an A.

Acquired from the Yankees the same day the Red Sox traded for Garrett Crochet, Narváez was viewed as a defensive-minded backup to Wong who was coming off an impressive (though very lucky) 2024 season. At the time of the trade, Narváez had just 15 plate appearances in the majors, and no one knew what to expect from him. In our TalkSox 2025 position analysis, we wrote the following about Narváez:

 “If his bat can be anything around league-average for a catcher, there's a chance he could even challenge Wong for the starting position by the end of the season”.

Well, he did just that (and had some luck with Wong getting injured). In the first half, Narváez hit .273/.347/.439 with 18 doubles, eight home runs, and 31 RBIs, as he would eventually be asked to serve as the team’s cleanup hitter for a portion of the season. The second half didn't go as well, however, as Narváez felt the fatigue of being a starting catcher during a playoff run as the team attempted to limit his innings behind the dish. In 45 second half games, Narváez hit just .187/.233/.387 and saw his OPS drop from .786 in the first half to .619. Along with that he hit nine doubles, seven home runs and 19 RBIs. What really proved that he was pressing at the plate was the fact he went from 30 walks in the first half to just eight in his final 45 games. Overall, he would hit .241/.306/.419 with a .726 OPS across 403 at-bats in his rookie season. Narvaez would also finish with 27 doubles, 15 home runs and 51 RBIs. He also had a fWAR of 2.7.

Defensively, Narváez did have some difficulty with catcher’s interferences, as he was called for it a few times. Luckily, he made up for it with a fielding percentage of .991 and by throwing out 32 runners. When it came to Fielding Run Value, Narváez was in the 95th percentile and was viewed as one of the better defensive catchers across the league.

Following the end of the season, Narváez had minor surgery to clean up his left knee, an issue he was dealing with since at least August.

Connor Wong: D+

Whereas everything went right for Wong in 2024, you could almost make the argument that 2025 was the complete opposite. In 2024, Wong ended up being one of the luckiest hitters in the sport; his final slash line of .280/.333/.425 with an OPS of .758 went with 24 doubles, a triple, 13 home runs and 54 RBIs, despite all of his peripherals showing that it shouldn’t have happened. His expected batting average that season was .231 and his expected slugging was .355. Paired with near-bottom-of-the-league exit velocity numbers (86.5 mph), hard-hit rate (34.5%), and squared-up rate (21.3%), a regression was expected for Wong in 2025.

No one expected it to be this big, however. Wong began the season as the starting catcher but quickly lost it due to a fracture to his pinkie on his left hand after getting hit on the glove by a swing during an April 8 game against the Blue Jays. Wong would return May 2 but had already lost the starting spot to Narváez. He would play in 34 games in the first half, hitting just .149/.235/.149 with no extra base hits and just one RBI. His OPS during that span was .384. The second half didn’t get much better, as he would go on to hit .235/.292/.333 with an OPS of .625 in 29 games. In that same span, he had eight doubles and six RBIs—still not up to his 2024 production, but better than his first half.

His luck happened to get even worse when he came up with runners in scoring position. In 40 games where he had a chance to drive someone in from second or third base, Wong would go on to hit .061, just 3-for-49 with five walks. He would go on to strike out 17 times while also hitting into four double plays, ruining plenty of scoring opportunities

Wong did showcase some improvement elsewhere, as he cut back on his strikeout rate from 23.4% in 2024 to 22.3% in 2025, while his walk rate increased from 5.7% to 8.5%.

Defensively, Wong did improve slightly, going from a FRV of -14 all the way up to -3 in 2025. However, he only threw out nine baserunners and committed more errors (five compared to four) in less games played (61 to 106).

In fairness, a lot of Wong’s issues may have been due to injury. After returning from the fractured pinky, Wong did play slightly better in May in his small number of games. In 13 games, he would go on to hit .214/.290/.214, though without any extra-base hits. Then there was a chance he had played through part of the second half injured as well, as on October 9 it was revealed by MassLive’s Christopher Smith that he underwent a successful right hand carpal boss excision, making one wonder if he was dealing with that throughout the season.

Wong finished the year with a fWAR of -0.7.

Ali Sánchez: C

There isn’t much to talk about regarding Sánchez. He was only with the team as an emergency third catcher when Narváez was originally dealing with his own health issues in early to mid-August and was designated for assignment just 10 days after joining Boston on August 18. In that span, he appeared in a single game with Boston, getting a single at-bat as a late-inning replacement in a game they were already losing.

Sánchez would return to Boston soon after, being acquired in an August 31 deal with the New York Mets after being signed by them to a minor league contract on August 23. Boston would add him to their September roster to serve as the emergency third catcher in order to allow Alex Cora to be aggressive with replacing either Narváez or Wong early in the game.

Sánchez would get into three games with Boston during his second stint with the team, again as a late-inning replacement each time, though he wouldn’t get into another game after September 13.

On September 21, Sánchez was once again DFA'd and was outrighted to Worcester on the September 23, where he stayed for the rest of the season in case he was needed for the playoffs. That wasn’t the case, and on October 6, he elected free agency.

Sánchez didn’t exactly due much during his two stints in Boston, but he filled his role as well as he could in his limited opportunities. A perfectly average grade for a perfectly average performance.

Blake Sabol: F

Sabol, who was designated for assignment by the San Francisco Giants on January 11, was brought in to serve as catching depth alongside fellow catcher Seby Zavala. Unlike Zavala, however, Sabol did get brought up to the major league club and had some time in Boston following Wong’s injury. To say it was a good time would be a lie.

Sabol very much proved the scouting reports correct in that he was a first baseman/corner outfielder who plays catcher as his main position.

Sabol would get to play eight games with Boston, and was it a good thing when his time with the team ended. In that short stint, Sabol hit .125/.167/.188 with one double and one RBI. He struck out at a 38.9% rate and defensively he was even worse. Eleven baserunners attempted to steal on him... only one was thrown out. Along with that, in only 39 innings behind the dish, Sabol committed two errors.

Once Wong was ready to return, Sabol was optioned back to Worcester and remained there until being traded to the White Sox for cash on July 12, over a month after being designated for assignment on June 1.

Fortunately for the Red Sox, the team did not need to rely too on much catching depth thanks to the sustained health of Narváez and Wong. While the latter didn’t have a season anyone expected, the former was able to exceed expectations and help hold down the catcher’s spot in the lineup. The 2026 season will hopefully see both catchers reprise their roles and take a step forward in their development and help strengthen that position within the organization.