The Boston Red Sox organization took a major blow when the decision was made to keep Sandy Leon as one of their two everyday catchers. At the beginning of the year, he found himself starting behind the plate over Christian Vazquez on a daily basis.
From the start of June ‘16 until the end of that season, Leon batted a career high .310 average over 78 games. Everything was looking in the up direction for his future in the sport of baseball, until this season. He ended the second game of the 2017 year with a walkoff homer, but that was a poor indication of what his season would have turned out to be. He never managed to get his BA back above .300 after the month of April. He played in an additional seven games this year (85) compared to last, but he only managed to hit the same amount of home runs (7), and got a whopping 17 less hits (61).
One of the more probable reasons why this Venezuelan-native stayed for the year was the fact that he was the preferred catcher of ace-pitcher, Chris Sale.
One free agent who is not exactly in high-demand and could platoon with Vazquez is Welington Castillo of the Baltimore Orioles. Castillo has played for the Chicago Cubs, Seattle Mariners, Arizona Diamondbacks, and the Orioles during his seven-year tenure in the major leagues.
2017 was a standout year for the 30 year-old born in the Dominican Republic. He batted a career high .282, with a total of 20 home runs. While he was setting new personal bests in the offensive category, he pocketed a $7M salary. Spotrac.com has his 2018 value rising up to $8.9M/year. This should not be much of a problem since it was reported that the Dave Dombrowski is expected and willing to rise above the luxury tax threshold during this offseason.
Another reason that this move could happen is the fact that this is a year that Leon is at the end of his single-year deal. The team could decide to re-sign him, enter arbitration, or he will just be released in all.
