We just talked about the non-tender deadline and, as part of that, we talked about how teams might trade non-tender candidates before tonight’s deadline in order to make some other team pay him in arbitration. Welp, the Red Sox just did that with catcher Sandy León.
León was dealt to the Indians for righty Adenys Bautista, who played in the rookie-level Dominican Summer League in 2019.
León is a glove first -- very glove first -- catcher who was projected to make north of $2 million in 2020. While his defense is valuable, he doesn’t have any business as a team’s starting catcher, and the suddenly-frugal Red Sox are looking to cut any payroll they can spare. The thinking here is, obviously, that they can pay some league minimum guy to be Christian Vázquez’s backup, though they’ll likely take a defensive hit to do so.
For Cleveland Léon will backup Roberto Pérez. In their case, he’s more or less the same kind of offensive catcher as their previous backup, Kevin Plawecki.