With the Sandy Lion officially gone, Vazquez is the only catcher on the 40-man roster. The Red Sox will obviously be adding a catcher to the big league roster.
There are plenty of backup catcher types available, but as you'd expect, most of them can't hit much at all.
These guys were just non-tendered and are now free agents:
Kevin Plawecki: age 28, career 218/304/322 in 978 PA
Kevan Smith: age 31, career 272/318/381 in 708 PA
Elias Díaz: age 29, 250/301/355 in 815 PA
Luke Maile: age 28, 198/252/304 in 657 PA (4 of his 10 career HRs have come against Boston)
Josh Phegley: age 31, 227/269/363 in 1185 PA
Caleb Joseph: age 33, in 223/270/350 1358 PA
Plawecki is sort of interesting as he is 28 and some say he has a good defensive rep and an OBP over .300, which is rare for these kind of guys.
The club's evaluation of these guys' defense will probably be the main factor in whether they're interested in any of them.
There are a bunch of other free agent catchers (who are mostly either old and/or can't hit.) This list is taken from @Red(s)HawksFan in the Leon thread:
There are plenty of backup catcher types available, but as you'd expect, most of them can't hit much at all.
These guys were just non-tendered and are now free agents:
Kevin Plawecki: age 28, career 218/304/322 in 978 PA
Kevan Smith: age 31, career 272/318/381 in 708 PA
Elias Díaz: age 29, 250/301/355 in 815 PA
Luke Maile: age 28, 198/252/304 in 657 PA (4 of his 10 career HRs have come against Boston)
Josh Phegley: age 31, 227/269/363 in 1185 PA
Caleb Joseph: age 33, in 223/270/350 1358 PA
Plawecki is sort of interesting as he is 28 and some say he has a good defensive rep and an OBP over .300, which is rare for these kind of guys.
The club's evaluation of these guys' defense will probably be the main factor in whether they're interested in any of them.
There are a bunch of other free agent catchers (who are mostly either old and/or can't hit.) This list is taken from @Red(s)HawksFan in the Leon thread:
Then there's always the trade market. I wouldn't want to see the Red Sox part with anything of value for a backup catcher. Maybe they could pick up a young, promising guy in a trade though.They've got just one catcher on the 40-man roster right now, and that's Vazquez, and no one else in the organization who's played above AA. And incidentally, two of the three that have reached AA are Rule 5 eligible so they might even disappear. Seems pretty clear back-up and AAA catchers are on Bloom's shopping list this winter. The only question is what is their ceiling for a back-up catcher, because the clear upgrades over Leon are likely to be pricier than he projected to be (~$2.3M per MLBTR).
Here's what I could find of available free agents with a minimum career OPS over .600:
Robinson Chirinos .767 (age 36)
Jonathan Lucroy .751 (34)
Russell Martin .746 (37)
Alex Avila .744 (33)
Wellington Castillo .738 (33)
Francisco Cervelli .738 (34)
Matt Wieters .724 (34)
Jason Castro .703 (33)
Blake Swihart .656 (28)
Austin Romine .647 (31)
Martin Maldonado .644 (33)
Rob Brantly .626 (30)
Rene Rivera .626 (36)
Bryan Holaday .626 (32)
Chris Herrmann .626 (32)
Ryan Lavarnway .613 (32)
Erik Kratz .606 (40)
Juan Centano .601 (30)
Not all that inspiring, but plenty of serviceable guys if they're willing to play for cheap and in a back-up capacity.