Yankees Accidentally Gifted Red Sox Breakout Star

The Boston Red Sox entered this past offseason with some questions at the catcher position.

In 2024, the Red Sox rolled out a tandem of Connor Wong and Reese McGuire for the most part. The Red Sox also acquired Danny Jansen. Neither Jansen nor McGuire are in the organization any longer. Boston had a potential catcher of the future in the minors in Kyle Teel but traded him to the Chicago White Sox this past offseason in the deal that brought Garrett Crochet to town.

Outside of Wong, the Red Sox had questions at catcher and one way they attempted to solve it was by acquiring 26-year-old backstop Carlos Narváez from the New York Yankees in exchange for minor-league pitcher Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz and international signing bonus pool money.

Clearly, the deal has worked out in Boston's favor. Wong has appeared in just 18 games this season due to an injury earlier in the campaign as well as inconsistent offensive play. Narváez had to step up when Wong went down and did so.

He stepped into the club's starting role and has been arguably the top defensive catcher in the American League and also is red-hot at the plate. Narváez has appeared in 34 games and is slashing .278/.346/.443 with four homers, 14 RBIs, 12 walks, seven doubles, and 18 runs scored. He already has 1.7 wins above replacement. Last year, Wong had 1.5 wins above replacement in 126 games played. He had 2.2 wins above replacement in 2023 in 126 games played.

Right now, Narváez is in the 92nd percentile in blocks above average, 92nd percentile in CS above average, 89th percentile in framing, and 62nd percentile in pop time.

The Yankees seem to have a lot of depth at catcher, but they may have accidentally gifted the Red Sox a catcher of the future.