What Cutting Kevin Plawecki Says About the Direction of the Boston Red Sox

The decision, the timing, the roster, and what it all points to this off-season

Catchers aren’t traditionally good hitters. And there are reasons for that, of course. They take a beating, for one. Not a game goes by when a catcher doesn’t get nicked by a foul ball, hit blocking a pitch, or smacked on a backswing. It’s pretty difficult to hit major league pitching under the best of circumstances, let alone after you’ve been beaten up over the course of weeks, months, or, in some cases, years. With that as the background, if I asked you what major league catchers are hitting this season, you might be surprised at the answer.

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Major league catchers are hitting .227/.297/.368, which, while not quite Aaron Judge, is better than I expected before I looked it up. That slash line equates to a wRC+ (where 100 is league average, 101 is one percent above, etc) of 89. That means major league catchers are only 11 percent below the league average hitter this season. That strikes me as pretty good considering, well, all that stuff up there.

Why am I bringing all this up? Because I want you to know that Kevin Plawecki was hitting .217/.287/.287, good for a wRC+ of 68, before he was released by the Red Sox. That’s not good. In fact, it’s pretty bad. And put into the context of major league catchers, it’s even worse.

You might even be able to put up with it if he was a defensive whiz, but no. The advanced metrics on Plawecki’s defense aren’t awful, but they’re hardly good either, and the non-advanced metrics, your regular garden-variety catching stats, are rough. Take stolen bases. Forty-four runners attempted to steal on Plawecki this season. He threw out just four of them. Nine percent. Not great, Bob.

Then add in the fact that, with three weeks or so left in the 2022 season, the Red Sox aren’t competing for anything but last place. As such, they’re trying to audition players who could play a role on their 2023 team. The Sox have already brought up Connor Wong who, along with Reece McGuire, is competing for playing time in 2023 (we can talk about the wisdom of that another time). Plawecki, a 32-year-old free-agent-to-be, is currently the backup to the backup catcher. This is a bit like the difference between the Assistant Regional Manager and the Assistant to the Regional Manager. It’s just a small uncapitalized two-letter word, but it makes a huge difference in role.

If the Red Sox were playing for something, Plawecki would still be on the roster, but they’re not. Decidedly not. Not remotely. And Plawecki, because of performance and free agent status, didn’t figure to get any playing time over the remainder of the season. More, Boston wanted the roster spot to audition another player, in this case reliever Frank German, who might play for the team next year. That’s why the Red Sox cut him loose.

And holy hell did that unleash the Kraken!

I’ve so far avoided pointing out that Plawecki was recognized by all as a positive force in the clubhouse. He was the guy who invented the laundry cart ride after a homer. He was in charge of music on team charters. He was the general in charge of morale in the clubhouse, not an insignificant role to be sure. That’s not typically the kind of player who gets tossed aside to bring up a reliever from Triple-A.

Cutting Plawecki wasn’t taken well anywhere. It was criticized by media members aplenty, but also by current Red Sox pitchers Rich Hill and Nathan Eovaldi. Both pointed out how important Plawecki was in the clubhouse, how good a game-caller he was, and how well he worked with the pitching staff. That’s notable not just because of the specifics of their points, but because two pitchers were willing to come out and publicly criticize a move made by the team that employs them. It’s not typically the way well functioning organizations operate, and it’s the second time that’s happened in under two months.

All important points, to be sure, but, and I say this with love and all due respect, Plawecki wasn’t very good at baseball. What’s more, he wasn’t going to play a role in 2023. And it’s probably slightly impolitic to point it out but I shall anyway: that’s also true of both Hill and Eovaldi.

Still, it was undoubtedly a tone deaf move, and it makes me wonder a few things. How much does the front office value what goes on in the clubhouse? The apparent answer is not very much. Players get sent down and cut all the time and the reason is always clear: because the team doesn’t value what they’re doing. Take Bobby Dalbec. He wasn’t a very good fielder and he wasn’t hitting. The team didn’t value his fielding or hitting (correctly, I’d argue, because there wasn’t much value in it) and so off he went for someone else who it was hoped would provide more value.

That same thing is true of Plawecki, except for two things. First is the clubhouse part, which, I’ll say again, those making the decisions didn’t put much stock in, and second, the timing of it. There’s two weeks left in the season, man. That’s a tough time to cut a dude. Sure you want to see German pitch. So do I. How about cutting someone like Abraham Almonte who is currently 33 and the backup to the backup outfielder, and that’s assuming you don’t count Christian Arroyo? Because, if you do count Christian Arroyo, then Almonte is the backup to the backup to the backup outfielder. Nothing against Almonte, but I doubt either Hill or Eovaldi would have badmouthed the front office if he’d been dropped out of a plane, let alone DFA’d.

That’s an interesting point there that I just made (hooray me) because it reveals not just a level of tone deafness, but a lack of understanding over what’s going piss off the players and what’s going to create bad press. Do the Red Sox really need more bad press? More articles about dysfunctional whatever, more players complaining about front office decisions? I’d argue no. They don’t need any more of that, but on this point clearly the front office disagrees with me.

Either that or they didn’t see this coming. Which, also, not great. Not because it means the Red Sox are going to hit fewer homers or because they’re going to blow more saves, but because of what it says about the front office’s understanding about what matters to the players and the media. The front office shouldn’t be making decisions based on what matters to the media or the players, but by gosh they should have a damn idea of what will piss people off, right?

The other point this brings up is this. If the front office doesn’t care about upsetting the players (because it’s either they didn’t know it would bother people or they didn’t care that it would, neither of which, again again, is great), that makes me wonder how many of the players currently in the Red Sox clubhouse figure to be there when the team reconvenes in Fort Myers this coming February? Do they not care about upsetting the apple cart because they’re going to detonate it moments after the World Series ends?

This is going to be a big off-season. There are a ton of free agents on the roster (though one fewer now) and some of the biggest names are either going to sign extensions, leave via free agency, or get traded. It’s not impossible that five of the nine starting players in the 2023 opening day lineup will be new to the organization. Or, given how little the front office seemingly cares about pissing off this team and its coaching staff (who I promise you aren’t a fan of this either), perhaps the overhaul will be even larger.

It’s going to be an interesting/exciting/terrifying off-season. This team may be all but unrecognizable in April and moves like cutting Kevin Plawecki with two weeks to go make me think that’s what’s about to happen.

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