On Monday afternoon, Christian Vázquez was taking batting practice before the first game of the Red Sox's three-game series in Houston when he learned he had been traded to the Astros. As he walked back to the dugout, he remarked: "It's a business."
It sure is. Sending SNCV to the Astros was only one of the three deals Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom made in roughly an hour's time. (Vázquez was not in the Astros' starting lineup on Monday evening.)
Boston received outfielder Tommy Pham (for a player-to-be-named-later or a mere bag of shells) with the Reds and got catcher Reese McGuire from the White Sox in exchange for reliever Jake Diekman.
"Someone Named" Christian Vázquez, who could be a free agent after this season, was the longest tenured player in the Red Sox organization. He made his major league debut in 2014 and became the team's main catcher in 2017. Boston received two 23-year-old prospects – infielder/outfielder Enmanuel Valdez and outfielder Wilyer Abreu.
MLB.com:
Abreu, 23, hit .249 while scoring 81 runs to go with 15 homers, 54 RBIs and 23 stolen bases in 89 games for Double-A Corpus Christi this season.Pham, 34 years old, batted .238/.320/.374 (88 OPS+) for the Reds this year. He has 11 dongs, but has not gone deep since June 30 (25 games) and is currently in a 0-for-10 slump. The Red Sox are his fifth team in the last five seasons. His contract with the Reds includes a $6 million mutual option for 2023 or a $1.5 million buyout.
Valdez, who is also 23, hit .327 with 21 home runs, 77 RBIs and a 1.016 OPS in 82 games split between Double-A Corpus Christi and Triple-A Sugar Land this season.
McGuire, 27 years old and a left-handed batter, is in his fifth major league season. He spent the first four years with the Blue Jays. In 2022, he's hitting .225/.261/.285 in 166 PA (53 games) for a 55 OPS+.
2 comments:
Vazquez was the one player I hoped would not be traded, but he brought the most value to the table in terms of his hitting and fielding prowess.
Additionally, going into the off-season, his first time as a free agent, I have to imagine that he wants to be paid well. This year, he's making $7M, and he's made only $23.3M in eight MLB seasons, which is less than $3M per season. I have to believe his value is north of $10M-$12M per season at this point (maybe more, I'm not the expert here), and if the Sox want to keep Devers in the fold after 2023, they are going to have to dump salary.
I wish him well and I hope he takes home a nice paycheck under his next contract.
Calcaterra writes that McGuire "is a formerly well-regarded prospect who hasn't hit a lick outside of a couple of cups of coffee with the Blue Jays early in his career. He is, however, regarded as a fantastic defensive catcher with excellent pitch-framing skills. He's under team control for three more years as well. If you can't ever remember seeing him play but, for some reason, his name rings a bell, maybe it's because you read about how he was arrested back in February 2020 for masturbating in his car while parked in a public parking lot. He pleaded no contest to a disorderly conduct charge and was only fined. Guess you could say that he . . . got off."
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