Leon exceeded (modest) expectations, and while he was never going to repeat his .310/.369/.476 stat line from 2016, he followed up his 2016 campaign with a season that looked more like what we should come to expect from Leon. It’s hard to package a year in which he took a significant step back offensively along with losing his starting spot as a positive thing, but there are some encouraging signs that Leon can continue to be productive in a specific role for the 2018 Red Sox.

WHAT WENT RIGHT

Leon made something of a name for himself during his Red Sox tenure thanks to surprising flashes of competent hitting, but he was actually an excellent defensive catcher last year. His 5.5 Adjusted Fielding Runs Above Replacement (Adjusted FRAA) was good for 13th best in all of baseball. It was an eight-run improvement from his 2016 Adjusted FRAA (-3.3). Most of his catching stats improved from last year, and you can look check them all out right here. He improved his framing and blocking significantly, and set a career high in runners thrown out (18). After posting a DRS of 3 in 600 innings over the 2016 season, Leon doubled that number last year, posting a DRS of 7 in only 100 more innings. Leon outperformed Christian Vasquez behind the plate in 2017, although whether that’s more of an indictment of Vasquez than an endorsement of Leon is worth wondering.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Leon went back to looking mortal at the plate. Like I mentioned at the top, his slashline dropped from .310/.369/.476 to .225/.290/.354. His wOBA plummeted almost 100 points and he lost 200 points on his OPS this season. He went back to being a significantly below-average offensive catcher, especially in the second half. After hitting .244/.291/.381 with a 72 wRC+ (which is by no means impressive, but tolerable when coupled with good defense) in the first half, Leon only hit .198/.289/.315 with a 60 wRC+ during the second half. During that same time, Christian Vasquez blossomed into one of the better hitters on the team, hitting .314/.359/.453 with a 115 wRC+ over 17o PAs. While the starting catcher battle figures to take place during Spring Training, it certainly felt like Vasquez finally took the reigns as the team’s catcher of the future during that stretch.

WHAT TO EXPECT

If there’s any silver linings for the Leon enthusiasts among you, it’s that many of the attributes that led to Leon’s career-best season in 2016 were still in his underwhelming 2017. Leon benefited from incredible amounts of luck in ’16, posting a .392 BABIP. That number dropped 100 points in 2017, and while a .280 BABIP looks more realistic for Leon, the catcher’s numbers look eerily similar across both seasons. He’s striking out and walking at the exact same rate. There were some signs of increasingly weaker contact, but overall, his batted ball numbers stayed relatively unchanged. His rate of contact stayed consistent, and he didn’t chase more pitches out of the zone. Put simply, the regression everyone and their mothers saw coming came.

Leon is a backup catcher. He’s not exceptional behind the plate, but he’s not unreliable either. He’s not much of a hitter, but he can hold his own at the bottom of the order. At this point, Christian Vasquez (or Blake Swihart? Anyone? Anyone?) should be the starting catcher, with Leon acting as the backup/Chris Sale’s personal backstop. His contract was tendered at the beginning of December, so it stands to reason that Leon will be back with the team this year. I don’t know if Christian Vasquez is a starting catcher, but I do know that Leon is a backup catcher, and for the short term, that works just fine for the Red Sox.

Photo by Troy Taormina – USA TODAY Sports

Not every prospect pans out. For every Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts, there are as many, if not more, Lars Andersons and Will Middlebrooks. Sometimes it’s talent related, and other times it’s injury related. None of this should be ground-breaking analysis. It’s very possible (and becoming more likely) that Swihart becomes the next prospect that just couldn’t stay healthy. The idea of a prospect not reaching his ceiling because of injury, while still frustrating, is an understandable aspect of the game. Catcher is an especially grueling position; there’s a reason why so few catchers, even at the major league level, finish their careers there. Try spending three hours a night in a crouched position, 162 nights a year, for five to ten years. It sounds awful.

Catcher is an especially grueling position; there’s a reason why so few catchers, even at the major league level, finish their careers there.

The problem hasn’t only been injuries, though. Half the battle has been the team’s a borderline-indefensible approach to managing Swihart. The organization has insisted on treating Swihart like a prospect who would grow out of the catcher position as he progressed through the minors. If you look at just his major-league numbers, you’d agree. In terms of Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA), Baseball Prospectus’ catch-all defensive metric, Swihart was not good with the Sox. In 2015, he spent 668 innings behind the plate, starting 78 games. During that span, Swihart posted a -8.7 FRAA, which you don’t need an in-depth explainer to tell you is not good.

It was after that stretch of games that the organization seemed to decide that Swihart wasn’t the answer. There were other positions where his bat could play, they thought, and in two years Christian Vasquez was going to be the best defensive catcher in baseball anyway. Swihart got exactly 52 innings to work with as the starting catcher in 2016 before the Sox made a change, sending him down to Triple-A. Through those 52 innings, Swihart hit .278/.391/.278, which is discouraging only from a power-hitting perspective. It seemed like a rash decision; for someone who flashed power all throughout the minors, it’s not inconceivable that adjusting to major league pitching might’ve taken a while (coughjackiebradleyjrcough). At least more than 52 innings. It’s not like the production from their other catchers has been noticeably better since then:

Ryan Hanigan

2015 (54 games): .247/.337/.328
2016 (35 games): .171/.230/.238

Sandy Leon

2015 (41 games): .184/.283/.202
2016 (78 games): .310/.369/.476 (a career year, whatever)
2017 (52 games): .241/.293/.371

Christian Vazquez

2016 (57 games): .227/.277/.308
2017 (54 games): .266/.303/.350

Outside of Leon’s career year – which was actually more of a career first half – are any of those worth giving up on Swihart for?

What’s worse than the quick hook was what came next. Deciding that Swihart had apparently played his last game behind the plate, the Sox tried to fast track him back to the majors through left field. Swihart, a great athlete by all regards, gave it the ol’ college try. Then this happened:

Since then, Swihart’s been either hurt, or healthy-ish but not playing catcher. All the while, the Red Sox have trotted out the likes of Ryan Hanigan, Sandy Leon, and Christian Vasquez. And sure, Sandy Leon gets hot for a few weeks at a time and everyone loves it. It’s great. I’ve seen more two-homer games from Sandy Leon than I would have ever imagined in my wildest dreams, which is saying something because dreaming about Sandy Leon is pretty wild. And yet, despite Swihart being 1. having the highest ceiling of any catcher on the team and 2. showing signs of being a capable major league hitter, the team has refused to give him another shot.

The latest news regarding Swihart came a few days ago, when Farrell told media members that they were going to start giving him some innings at both corner infield spots. His ankle has had some setbacks in the healing process that hasn’t allowed him to catch, they said. Maybe that’s true – if so, I have like 72.5 million shares of Rusney Castillo stock that I think you’d be interested in. Playing Swihart in left, and then at first, and then soon at third ensure that the Red Sox have bungled away two things: a young prospect with a ceiling that would make you drool, and one of their farm’s more valuable trade chips. There was a time when Swihart was the centerpiece of every hypothetical blockbuster on the internet. Who wouldn’t want a young catcher with above-average hit skills, speed, and projectable defense? If the Red Sox were going to roll with Christian Vasquez, the least they could do was realize when to sell high. They did neither, and now we’re stuck wincing through Boston Globe longreads about the challenges he’s faced over the last two years. Baseball is dumb sometimes.

Photo by Kim Klement – USA TODAY Sports

As the season winds down, Sox fans and both the Boston and national media have spent a lot of time both looking ahead to October and remembering the past. Of course, we’re fondly remembering and reminiscing about the career of a certain designated hitter. Meanwhile, Sox fans contentedly peer practically to the future issue of playoff team management, like which players make the 25-man roster and the order of the starting rotation.

Much of the roster that will play in the ALDS is obvious, but some spots are up in the air. How many people would have projected Sandy Leon to be a starting catcher on this year’s division-champion Red Sox? The 27-year-old has exceeded all expectations, and while his spot is clearly secure, his backup is slightly uncertain. Christian Vazquez seems to have lost all traction in earning playing time, so the decision will come down to Bryan Holaday and Ryan Hanigan. Neither offers much sexiness at the plate and both would dwell at the bottom of the lineup.

As Pete Abraham points out in the Globe, the Red Sox are 21-8 in games started by Hanigan (48-32 since last season, according to Michael Silverman) and, given his longer tenure and experience with the pitching staff, he seems to be the safer bet. Hanigan has a little potential to play to David Ross 2013-like role in October. That may just be a comparison made for the sake of comparison, but ‘wily veteran backup catcher’ seems like a prerequisite for playoff success.

The roster gets a little more complicated in the bullpen. All of a sudden, after months of blown leads and late-inning implosions and overreactions to bullpen mismanagement (of which I am assuredly guilty), the Red Sox … have too many relievers. That can’t be right.

Along with Drew Pomeranz moving to the bullpen with some shoulder soreness and fatigue, the team has five relievers who seem like locks to make the playoff roster: Craig Kimbrel, Koji Uehara, Brad Ziegler, Matt Barnes and Robbie Ross Jr. That leaves probably two spots (assuming 13 position players and 12 pitchers) for a group of pitchers who, frankly, have all pitched well enough in the past month of merit a roster spot: Heath Hembree, Fernando Abad, Robby Scott, Junichi Tazawa and Joe Kelly.

Pete Abe’s roster breakdown from above has Abad and Hembree making it as the final two. Maybe it’s the ease with which his name lends itself to unfortunate puns, but I have little confidence in Abad in high-leverage October situations. The lefty has a 6.39 ERA during his time in Boston and has allowed 13 hits and eight walks in 12.2 innings. Lefties, however, are just 3-for-23 against Abad since he arrived in Boston. On the year, he’s held opposing left-handers to a .459 OPS. That is, um, really good.

If the Sox are wary about Abad being bad (get it? It’s like his name), they would probably still want a lefty out of the pen other than Ross, who figures more as a long-relief out-getter. Maybe Pomeranz is healthy enough to pitch and pitch in tough spots in relief by the time the playoffs roll around. Regardless, Farrell may consider bringing Robby Scott into the fold. Scott, of course, has a comically short baseball-reference page, having made just six major league appearances in his career. But they’ve been good ones! The left-hander has thrown 5.1 scoreless innings, striking out five and allowing six runners to reach base. Lefty batters are 2-for-10 against him, so maybe Robby Scott is our LOOGY after all.

More importantly, can you imagine how much pleasure Joe Buck would get out of telling Scott’s undrafted-free-agent story to a national audience in the seventh inning of a playoff game? Give America the chance to hear it, John Farrell.

Much as I will always love him for his 2013 postseason performance (and you too, Brandon Workman, wherever you are currently rehabbing), Tazawa has looked worn out coming out of the bullpen and probably doesn’t end up on the roster. While his performances have been better of late, Farrell’s unwillingness to pitch Tazawa in high-leverage situations indicates that he’ll probably not be appearing in October.

So that leaves Hembree and Kelly. Prior to the nonsense grand slam Wednesday night, Kelly had yet to allow a run since returning to the bullpen in September. In 11.1 innings, he had allowed eight hits (all singles) and struck out 15. And, of course, Great Stuff. Kelly has it. Hembree, on the other hand, has worked to a 2.25 ERA in nine appearances since rejoining the roster in mid-August.

Given Hembree’s longer track record as a full-time reliever and the potential instability of other parts of the bullpen given Pomeranz’s injury and Scott’s inexperience, I wouldn’t be surprised if Farrell opts to put Hembree on the roster in favor of Kelly.

Quick Hits

The bullpen’s isn’t alone in helping the Red Sox to a division-clinching month of September. The rotation has been good and, with Pomeranz down, the postseason rotation is set to include David Price, Rick Porcello, Clay Buchholz and Eduardo Rodriguez. As Silverman writes in the Herald, the Sox have lined Price up to pitch game 162 Sunday and then Game 2 of the ALDS, with Porcello going Game 1. Buchholz’s Long and Winding Road of a season continued with an impressive six-inning, one-hit performance at Yankee stadium Wednesday. At Over the Monster, Matt Collins asks if we should be worried about Playoff Clay. Eddie Rodriguez’s season looks ugly on the surface, 3-7 with a 4.68 ERA, a 118 cFIP and 5.53 DRA. But those numbers don’t tell the whole story of his 2016, as Ben Buchanan points out at Over the Monster. Rodriguez owns a more than respectable 3.10 ERA while limiting hitters to a .213 average since coming back from AAA on July 16.

This week, the nostalgia incurred by the impending retirement of David Ortiz has come out in full force. This, still, to me, is not actually happening. I have not reached a point of acceptance with the end of Papi’s career. Watching this team well over 100 times has numbed my senses to the ongoing commemorations and commercialization of David Ortiz’s baseball farewell. Every final game in *insert miscellaneous American League ballpark* has spawned gifts and celebrations and fairly emotionless goodbyes. They have all blended together.

Now, it’s real. Thursday’s game will mark the last time David Ortiz plays in Yankee Stadium. One more regular season series at home. That’s it. Now we’re talking about whether he’ll make the Hall of Fame, as Dan Shaughnessy wrote in the Globe.

Papi himself is penning Players Tribune farewells to Yankee fans. He is the website’s Editor at Large, after all. And Brian Cashman is answering questions about Ortiz’s career in the past tense.

I guess this is really happening. After spending literally more than half my life with David Ortiz in it, his career is coming to an end. How about a championship sendoff?

Photo by Dan Hamilton/USA Today Sports Images

Usually, with catchers, you want to put your two best out there on the 25-man roster. That’s neither new nor groundbreaking advice. Unfortunately, the Red Sox seem to not want to heed that counsel. Unsurprisingly, they looked like they were on their way to having near-zero production from that position, especially early on in the season.

It seems blasphemous right now, with all the offense and whatnot, but it’s worth mentioning that the Red Sox have had some issues with managing their group of catchers. Sure, at first, that’s not that big of a deal. Some teams win in spite of problems like this, and so far, the Red Sox have done so impressively despite a position that looked doomed to fail in May.

At the beginning of the season, the two catchers the Red Sox put on the 25-man roster were Blake Swihart and Ryan Hanigan. Not a bad pairing, considering Swihart’s youth and Hanigan’s veteran-ness and decent defense. Neither of them survived the season without being substantially injured. Hanigan got hit with ankle tendinitis in August and didn’t come back until roster expansion, and Swihart, well, it hasn’t been pretty for him.

You already know the story. He starts off scuffling a bit, then the Red Sox move him to the outfield, and he hurts this ankle so bad that he’s out for the rest of the season. I’ve talked about this before earlier this year, but the question still remains: why? What was the point of making him an outfielder? There was no need to risk a blue-chip catching prospect like that, especially one you foresee as being behind the plate for you for a long, long time. That’s aggravating, to say the least.

It’s gotten to the point where you suspect the Red Sox don’t know what they have in catchers. Take Christian Vazquez, for example. He came on strong early in the season, but when his bat cooled and his defense turned out to be more disappointing than any of us expected, he was sent down on July 4th. Not the result anyone wanted, but an expected move considering the (hopefully temporary) degradation of the skillset.

Then, on August 5th, the Red Sox claim Bryan Holaday off waivers and put him on the 25-man as a reaction to Hanigan going on the disabled list. This is where things get kind of…strange. Holaday has a big arm, but that’s really it, and he’s basically been the personal catcher of Drew Pomeranz for reasons unknown. What’s the point with him, then? If he’s nothing more than a guy who goes out there every fifth day for one specific starter, wouldn’t Vazquez be a more sensible solution? He’s 1. already on your roster, 2. proven to at least be a competent defender, and 3. not a waste of resources, even if it is a seemingly small amount of them. He could also be Pomeranz’s personal catcher, for all intents and purposes. Holaday and Pomeranz had never even played together, so this isn’t like a Jon Lester and David Ross thing, where they liked being their own battery so much that they practically became a package deal. It’s really odd.

Vazquez does everything you got Holaday to do, and didn’t require a waiver claim. If the Red Sox really wanted a non-impactful bat with acceptable defense, even a early-season Vazquez would’ve done better than what we’ve seen from Holaday. It’s simply baffling that he’s still on the roster now, of all times. I get that you want catcher depth, but running three deep is good enough for most teams. You don’t need a fourth.

At this point, we can at least be happy for Sandy Leon’s miraculous step forward, because if he hadn’t, the Red Sox might’ve been stuck with the worst position in the major leagues, productively speaking. The sudden offensive explosion has masked a ton of bad decisions that led to Leon needing to be a key cog. Don’t get me wrong, I love Sandy, but you can’t deny that him being hotter than a supernova for two months made the catcher position seem a lot better than we expected it to be.

All this really makes you wonder if the Red Sox know what they’re doing with their catchers. They’ve completely mishandled their prized prospect, who is now an outfielder due to an overreaction to left field injuries, and claimed a guy who is a slightly worse version of a catcher they already have so they can play him over that very same catcher. It’s not all that understandable, even with the added benefit of hindsight. A lot of these decisions look like kneejerk reactions to temporary problems. Just because Ryan Hanigan’s going to the DL for a bit doesn’t mean you need to go get Holaday and roll him out there, though admittedly it cost little to acquire Holaday. Vazquez already does what he does, and he could use the reps.

The Red Sox’s front office has put together a great team, that much is true. But man, they cannot handle catchers at all, and that might just be the most damning thing you can say about the FO so far this year. Relative to their success, that’s acceptable. But when you lose a prospect for a year because of it, something has to change before heading into 2017.

Photo by Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports Images

Swihart was a catcher for roughly two weeks, until his defense took a nosedive and he became something of a scapegoat for the Red Sox’s pitching struggles in April. The Red Sox then decided that they needed a better left-handed bat in left field after Brock Holt disappeared following a hot start. After a stint in Triple-A Pawtucket where he refined his outfielder skills, Swihart was recalled to the major league squad on May 20.

Yet Swihart was injured just two weeks later. It’s okay, the video’s not tough to watch — Dennis Eckersley is the color guy.

And, as we’ve recently found out, that would be Swihart’s last time on the field in 2016. It’s a very disappointing end for the Red Sox’s prized catcher, especially realizing that he caught all of six games in 2016. That’s four percent of all possible games he could’ve caught in a season. Accounting for days off, we can round down the number to roughly 110 games, but still, that’s five percent of that reduced total. No matter how you look at it, that’s a failure to manage a valuable player.

But boy, does that injury look familiar. I seem to recall another player with no prior experience in the outfield taking over in left and getting hurt against that very wall:

Good lord, that’s the exact same play. The contact, the ball’s arc, the location. Everything. And you want to know why Hanley was so bad for the rest of the season? You’re probably looking at it.

So, with that potential danger in mind, why would the Red Sox roll their prized catcher out there? Sure, there weren’t many options, but it’s not like your catching depth was that great either. They didn’t know Sandy Leon would catch fire, so you were left with three guys who couldn’t hit, and you hoped the defense would be enough. As we saw with Vazquez, it wasn’t.

The Red Sox’s catching situation was already tenuous, and now the dedicated catchers that have been on the 25-man roster — Leon, Vazquez, Holaday and Hanigan — have combined for 0.3 WARP. It would’ve looked a lot worse had Sandy Leon not inherited the ghost of Babe Ruth in mid-July. There’s no way you can say the Red Sox wouldn’t have benefited from Swihart getting games behind the plate instead of sticking him in left field. The Red Sox had everything to gain by keeping him there.

Alas, here we are, with the news that Swihart needs ankle surgery. It’s easy to criticize this in hindsight, sure. The left field situation was not good, and the Red Sox didn’t have a go-to left-handed batter to lean on behind Holt. Brennan Boesch turned out to still be a pumpkin, and the Red Sox chose not to keep David Murphy. The thing is, it would’ve been better just to leave left field as it was and take the hit with a Holt/Young platoon, or just Chris Young alone. They still had an incredible offense regardless of who they threw out there, and that’s without including Chris Young hitting everything in June and July.

That’s what makes this so frustrating. The Red Sox mismanaged a valuable asset because a platooned outfielder wasn’t hitting. And while Swihart’s defense wasn’t great, that was what you use that demotion for. Have him work on it in Triple-A while you ride Vazquez’s hot streak. Once Vazquez comes down from that, bring Swihart back. He is still your best offensive option behind the plate, and even with his meh defense, it’s not like Vazquez was that much better. That’s probably not the most optimal plan, but it’s better than moving Swihart to a position he knew nothing about going in, and needed surgery as a result of that lack of experience.

Now comes the concern for his future. Sure, he’s probably going to be fine, and he has ample time to recover and be ready for Spring Training next year. But there’s just that little bit of doubt lingering. It didn’t help that the Red Sox were all over the place with their predictions on when he’d be back: First they thought it was season ending, then Dave Dombrowski expected him to return this season (and DD still wanted him in left field, ugh), then finally the dreaded second opinion option came in after Swihart’s recovery had stalled. Ankle injuries can be tricky, and it’s a good thing he won’t be rushed back and/or try to play on it as soon as possible. If there’s a silver lining, I guess it’s that it wasn’t a neck or back injury, as those can derail careers pretty quickly, and I can’t imagine how bad a recurring back injury would be for a catcher.

Thankfully, Andrew Benintendi making the best of his call-up so far might keep Swihart in catcher’s pads in 2017. But man, what a way to waste a perfectly good player’s season. Swihart should’ve never been out there in the first place, and while being a catcher isn’t the safest job, it sure as hell beats the risk of running headlong into outfield walls when you’ve never done it before.

There are right and wrong ways to handle growing pains with your young catcher, and the Red Sox wrongfully gambled with Swihart in left field. Let the players play where they’re best at, and please, let this be the end of the agonizing left field experiments in Fenway Park. We’ve seen enough carnage.

This Red Sox season has been an odd one. Jackie Bradley is an excellent hitter but his defense has taken a step back. Weird. David Ortiz is 40 and better than ever. Huh? David Price has been bad, but somehow really good too. What? But nowhere in this bizarre spin-cycle of a season has there been anything as strange as Sandy Leon.

As I write this, we’re days from the trade deadline and the Red Sox are done unless they’re not. Dave Dombrowski is in charge and, supreme mover and shaker that he is, nobody is safe. Perhaps one of them most intriguing names on the market is that of Jonathan Lucroy. Lucroy is a catcher for the Brewers and brings an exciting group of skills including power, on-base ability and pitch framing. He’s perhaps the one player that makes the most sense for the Red Sox given where they are in the rotation (mostly full), the outfield (returning to health), and the infield (good to go). So, when you consider Blake Swihart’s injury and Christian Vazquez’s complete inability to hit, getting Lucroy makes sense. Except, there is Sandy Leon.

The first 17 players on the list of most valuable catchers per WAR have over 140 plate appearances. In truth, most have more than 300. But all of them have over 140, that is, until you get to the 18th spot. The player in the 18th spot has 93 plate appearances (before yesterday’s game). In those 93 PAs, he has 33 hits including 10 doubles, a triple, and three homers. That player is, of course, Sandy Leon, and that list is of the most valuable catchers in baseball by our metrics here at BP. I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that our metrics treat Leon somewhat roughly, relatively speaking. By FanGraphs WAR, Leon has been the sixth best catcher in baseball. SIXTH! Steven Vogt, Brian McCann, Yasmani Grandal, and Matt Wieters are just some of the catchers that Leon has out-performed this year, which is silly in and of itself, but I want to draw your attention to the part that is extremely nuts. It’s not that Leon has been better than them. He has, but that’s not the point. It’s that he’s been better than them in about a third of the opportunities to be better than them. That’s extremely nuts!

It is on a couple different levels, too. It’s crazy because it’s just crazy. But it’s crazy because Leon was a forgotten player… I was going to say last year, but he was a forgotten player this year! After Vazquez’s injury last season, the team picked up Leon from Washington because that’s who they could get for basically nothing. Do you know who the Red Sox traded for Leon? I looked it up because I couldn’t remember either. The answer: nobody. They bought him for “cash considerations.” Incidentally that’s how I pay for my pizza. The Nationals thought so little of Leon that he wasn’t even worth a player, any player. The Red Sox thought so little of him that they DFA’d him one year ago (July 20, 2015).

To be fair to the Red Sox though, he was kinda terrible. So that’s the other thing that makes this all so weird. Leon has been excellent, amazing in fact, but he’s come out of nowhere to do it. He was literally cut loose by two organizations, and the second time nobody cared enough to bother with him, which is why he’s still on the Boston Red Sox. So then he comes into this season fourth on Boston’s catcher depth chart behind Swihart, Vazquez, and Ryan Hanigan in whatever order you want, and [flash forward four months] he’s not just the starter, he’s one of the best catchers in the sport.

So how in the heck, right? Well, let’s acknowledge that some of this is good fortune. You don’t sustain a .469 BABIP in the majors regardless of how many line drives you hit, or how much you barrel up the ball. Major league pitchers are too good. But this isn’t all luck, right? We’ve all seen Leon hit ball after ball on the screws. This can’t just be the baseball gods favoring a down and out player for a few months. Leon isn’t the best catcher in baseball, saying that much seems fair, but his success deserves the benefit of the doubt. So let’s see if we can figure it out.

First, look at this graph.

This is Sandy Leon’s exit velocity. The light blue is Leon, the gray line is the league average. It’s a weekly graph so it would fluctuate, but you can see how Leon has been, as John Farrell would say, impacting the ball. He’s been impacting the heck out of the ball, in fact. According to FanGraphs, 32.4 percent of his balls in play have been hard hit. For context, Mookie Betts is at 35.3 percent and Dustin Pedroia is at 32 percent. But it should be noted that 48.5 percent of Leon’s hits have been hard enough to be categorized as “medium hard.” That means that of the balls he puts into play, about 80 percent have a good shot to fall for a hit.

So that all sounds great, right? Here’s the bad news: the league average of Hard Hit plus Medium Hits is also 80 percent. Leon sprays the ball around, but his batted ball profile shows him as a very average hitter. So we’re back to Leon’s .469 BABIP, his unimpressive walk rate (six percent) and mediocre strikeout-to-walk ratio (3:1). I hate to end this on a buzz-killing note but I don’t think there’s any way Sandy Leon is this good, or is someone the Red Sox can count on as a star player going forward. If they can get Jonathan Lucroy for a reasonable package, they should, and they shouldn’t let Sandy Leon stand in their way.

However, this article isn’t finished. That’s because what Leon has done so far is, at the very least, put himself in the position to be a league average catcher going forward, or possibly even a little bit better if there is something in his performance that is more sustainable than I’m supposing here. As we’ve seen this season, league average players can be extremely valuable. Just imagine, for example, if the Red Sox had two more league average starters this season. They’d have a bunch more wins and they’d still have Anderson Espinosa. League average players are valuable. Sandy Leon, even if he’s not the best catcher in baseball, is very valuable.

Sandy Leon isn’t the best catcher in baseball, even if he’s made a case for it in the small sample of opportunities he’s been given this season. If the Red Sox can improve the position by adding a star like Lucroy, they should do so and not look back. But Leon has absolutely proven that he can be a major league catcher, even if he doesn’t have the baseball gods so solidly on his side, and considering where he’s been as recently as last season, that just might be the strangest story in a very strange Red Sox season.

Photo by Winslow Towson/USA Today Sports Images

No one would say the hitting’s been a problem, as it’s the one thing keeping the team afloat. But what about the bench players? They’re not a particularly inspiring group, but they’re not main cogs of the run-scoring machine the Red Sox run out there every day. You could definitely fault them as a whole for being pretty terrible, though.

On Opening Day, the Red Sox began the season in Cleveland with a bench that included Ryan Hanigan, Pablo Sandoval, Chris Young, and Rusney Castillo. While benches aren’t exactly supposed to be imposing, this one certainly wasn’t at first. Chris Young is the one good name here, and he’s currently on the disabled list after pulling a hamstring. Sandoval’s shoulder ended up being a lot worse than we thought, and he was done for the year. Rusney Castillo has been so bad in both Triple-A Pawtucket and the big league club that he’s since been removed from the 40-man roster. Hanigan’s a backup, but even he was sidelined by a neck strain, and catching Steven Wright hasn’t helped his defensive metrics in any way.

So, next one(s) up, right? Here comes Christian Vazquez, who clubbed a home run I can only describe as immensely satisfying to watch. The clean sound off the bat, the arc, the – well, everything.

As great as that dinger was, it didn’t take long for Vazquez to revert back to his old ways of simply not hitting. The thing is, you accept that if he could play some of his trademark phenomenal defense, right? He didn’t have that either. After a June that saw Vazquez hit .189/.246/.226, he was sent to Pawtucket, and Sandy Leon was called up.

Then Leon caught fire, and in just 60 PA, he amassed 1.1 WARP. Catchers, man. Apart from Young, Leon might be the best guy here in terms of contributing to the 2016 team.

I’d talk about Blake Swihart with the rest of the backstops, but he was a catcher for all of a month. Swihart was sent back down to Triple-A to learn how to play left field, as Brock Holt had one good week and didn’t really do much after that. Come May, it turned out Holt was also playing through concussion symptoms. So Swihart gets installed as the left-handed platoon partner in LF, and promptly gets injured while playing a position he had all of a few months worth of experience with. Another bench player bites the dust, albeit an out-of-position one.

“But Brett,” you argue, “catcher depth is going to have some very steep fall-off in production after the starter!” And yes, that’s true. The thing is, all the guys who haven’t been backup catchers on the Red Sox’s bench have collectively been just as bad.

Of the infielders, Marco Hernandez has promise, but that’s about all you can say for whomever’s graced the Red Sox bench over the last couple months. Josh Rutledge was doing okay filling in here and there, but knee tendinitis has sidelined him, forcing the Red Sox to rely on Deven Marrero and Mike Miller – yeah, that was my reaction too – to help put a band-aid on a bullet wound.

The outfielders are in the same spot. Chris Young’s pulled hammy opened the door for Bryce Brentz, who has done well early on, but you’re not going to be sold on a guy who has a 25% difference between his strikeout and walk rates. Ryan LaMarre has appeared, and then disappeared, kinda like this pitch:

RYAN LAMARRE pic.twitter.com/Pz7n1gCMXa

— Joon Lee (@iamjoonlee) June 21, 2016

Yeah. That’s what the Red Sox have been dealing with.

So what’s been the point of me listing off all the failings of guys of which the majority shouldn’t be starting in the first place? Well, it’s because this is starting to become an issue as bad as the starting pitching. It’s just not as evident or instantly noticeable.

The 2016 Red Sox are being propelled on the strength of the hitting of Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr., and David Ortiz, with some help thrown in by the likes of Dustin Pedroia and Travis Shaw. But man, does it ever drop off after that. Hanley Ramirez has been okay, sure, but who do you turn to when he can’t buy a hit and Travis Shaw starts regressing from hitting .350 for two months? You turn to the bench.

This time, there was nothing on the bench to shore up whatever the Red Sox lacked. Combined with a pitching staff that got worse at the worst time, the Red Sox trudged through a 10-16 June, and the left field situation got so bad that people started wondering if Andrew Benintendi could work out in a call-up to the majors from Double-A Portland.

Benches, in a vacuum, aren’t supposed to be good. I get that. The players aren’t starting because they’re not good enough to do so, and we weren’t going to see something like 2013 where guys like Mike Carp and Jonny Gomes annihilated everything they saw. But the Sox, with the resources they have, should’ve done better.

Thankfully, Dave Dombrowski’s taking steps to actually fix all this, trading for Aaron Hill, who was – relative to the Sox bench – smacking the hell out of the ball in Milwaukee. It’s a start. They might just have to wait for guys to come back off the DL for more help.

One can only hope the regulars keep doing what they’re doing, since the Red Sox can’t really afford for them to do much else. That’s the situation they’ve ended up in after the first half, and it’s not going away anytime soon.

Photo by Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA)
This was a bizarre game, so of course the Red Sox had the most important play by WPA despite losing by four runs. In a third inning that lasted roughly an hour, Ryan Hanigan came to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs in a tie ball game. He smacked a single back up the middle to score two runs (+.183) and give the Red Sox a 7-5 lead. It’s in an entirely insignificant number of plate appearances, but Hanigan now has a wRC+ over 100 in high-leverage situations compared to a 36 overall mark on the year.

The top play for the victorious Orioles came all the way back in the first inning. Mark Trumbo came up with the bases loaded and one out with his team down 1-0 and he came through with a two-run, go-ahead single. It’s very odd for a back-and-forth game like this to have a top play come in the first inning for the winning team.

Bottom Play (WPA)

David Ortiz obviously comes through in the big situations more often than not, but it wasn’t the case in last night’s game. With the game tied at eight in the sixth inning and the Red Sox putting together what looked to be a big inning, David Ortiz came to the plate with runners on the corners and one out. One could’ve easily envisioned his second homer of the game to give the Red Sox a bit of a cushion. Instead, he hit a routine double play (-.176) to end the inning. Baseball is dumb sometimes.

Joe Kelly’s Leash Has to be Getting Smaller

Regardless of how you feel about his stuff, Kelly is proving time and time again that he’s just not a good starting pitcher. Anyone can struggle against this Orioles lineup, but that’s not an excuse for a guy who has pitched like Kelly has over the last couple of seasons. His command was all over the place, and he gave up hard contact in just about every at bat. Given how the Red Sox have treated him since acquiring him two summers ago, who knows how many more starts he’ll get. There’s not much reason to give him many more, even with the acknowledgement that the other options aren’t much better. Not long after the game, Kelly was optioned to Pawtucket. Which leads us to our next section.

Clay Buchholz Was Solid out of the Bullpen

Part of this has more to do with how low Buchholz’s bar has been set than his actual performance. He was by no means his former dominant self. With that being said, it was a solid outing that helped save the bullpen from being any more blown up than it was after Kelly’s short outing. Those four runs clearly jump out as bad, but it’s not as discouraging as it seems. He was mainly hurt by a poor sixth inning, for which he deserves plenty of blame after starting the frame off with eight straight balls. However, he was also undone by a rare error from Dustin Pedroia on what should’ve been an easy double play. He was then hurt by a small strikezone in the next inning. He’s not “fixed” by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d have more faith in him than Kelly at this point. The good news for the Red Sox is that they have two days off next week, so they have some time to figure this out.

Mookie Betts Does It Again

As bleak as things may sound from the above, the reality is that the Red Sox are still a very good baseball team. Much of that has to do with the offense, and much of that has to do with Mookie Betts right now. He hit two more homers on Wednesday night and became the first player in history to hit dingers in the first two innings of two consecutive games. Remember when he was off to a slow start? He’s now hitting .288/.335/.549 on the year.

Xander Bogaerts’ Hit Streak Continued

It’s now up to 25 games. There is no reason to read any more into the following observation: Bogaerts really cares about this hit streak. He’s visibly celebrating after he extends it every night, in a sharp contrast from Bradley’s nonchalant approach.

Coming Next

The Red Sox look to win this four-game set in Baltimore tonight with Rick Porcello taking on Ubaldo Jimenez. First pitch is at 7:05 ET.

Top Play (WPA)

Blake Swihart had been going through a bit of a slump in his return to the majors, tallying just one single in his first three games. That changed on Wednesday night as he came through with the biggest hit of the game that really broke it open for Boston. The catcher-turned-left-fielder came up to the plate in a tied game with runners on first and second and two down. He broke out of his mini slump with a blast to deep center field that turned into a two-run triple (+ .244), giving the Red Sox a lead they would never relinquish.

Bottom Play (WPA)

The Red Sox won this game and clinched the series in the process, and they wouldn’t even let Colorado take the bottom play. This team is a bunch of bullies. Immediately before that Swihart triple, Christian Vazquez came up to pinch hit for Ryan Hanigan (more on that in a second) with runners on the corner and one out. He hit a grounder to Christian Adames, who gunned Jackie Bradley down at the plate (-.087). It didn’t end up mattering, but it shows the stark difference between this year’s team and the last two seasons. There’s no way that inning ends as positively in previous years.

The worst play for the losing Rockies came when Gerrardo Parra struck out swinging with runners on the corners and nobody out in the top half of the fourth (-0.57).

JBJ’s extends hit streak to 29

Bradley poked a liner through the left side in the second at bat of the game, limiting the drama surrounding whether or not his streak would continue. Just 27 more games to go.

Dustin Pedroia and Ryan Hanigan Leave Game for Very Different Reasons

We’ll start with Pedroia, because it’s obviously more concerning. After ripping a double in the fifth inning, and looking completely fine in the process, Boston’s second baseman was immediately pulled from the game. It came out later that it was for right hamstring tightness, though as of this writing we’re still not sure how serious it is. Maybe you know, Reader From The Future. It didn’t look too serious given the way he ran off the field, and the Red Sox better hope it’s not. Pedroia has been quietly vital for this lineup.

Hanigan, meanwhile, was pulled from the game because of illness. At least that was the official reason. It may very well be true, but he also was having an incredibly hard time with Wright’s knuckleball. Through the three innings he played, he allowed four passed balls and was also behind the plate for two wild pitches.

Steven Wright is The Ace

David Price has bounced back and is looking like his old self again, but that doesn’t mean Wright has given up his title as The Ace. He pitched into the eighth last night, striking out seven batters while allowing three runs, two of them earned. The wild pitches were definitely problem, but that will happen with knuckleballers sometimes. Plus, he really buckled down as the game went on. He now has a 2.37 ERA through his first nine starts over 60.2 innings, and this is quickly transforming from a fun start of the year to a legitimate All-Star case.

Xander Bogaerts Is: Good

Bogaerts started the scoring for the Red Sox last night, depositing a pitch at his knees 415 feet away into the Monster Seats. It was his fifth homer of the year, and he’s now hitting .349/.404/.513 on the year. Oh, he also made a really nifty leaping grab in the third.

Coming Next

The Red Sox will go for the sweep tonight in the most unfavorable pitching matchup of the series. We all know how poorly Clay Buchholz has pitched, and with Eduardo Rodriguez looking good in his last rehab start, this is an enormous start for him. Meanwhile, Colorado will toss out Jon Gray. Don’t be fooled by the former third overall pick’s 6.75 ERA. He’s striking out 11 batters per nine innings this season to go along with a 2.62 FIP, 3.21 DRA and 82 cFIP. First pitch will  be at 7:10. It will also be preceded by the number retiring ceremony for Wade Boggs, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Photo by Mark L. Baer/USA Today Sports Images