Baseball Prospectus

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Preseason Long-Term Forecast (Beyond the 2019 Projections)

Comparable Players (Similarity Index 77)

Rank	Score	Name	Year	DRC+	Trend
1	89	Tony Cruz	2015	59
2	82	Jordan Pacheco	2014	81
3	81	Dioner Navarro	2012	91
4	81	Josh Thole	2015	81
5	81	James McCann	2018	72
6	80	Trevor Crowe	2012	0	DNP
7	80	Drew Butera	2012	68
8	80	Benny Bengough	1927	79
9	79	Johnny Oates	1974	56
10	79	Fred Kendall	1977	72
11	79	Jason Jaramillo	2011	84
12	79	Frank Grube	1933	76
13	79	Michael Barrett	2005	104
14	78	Joe Astroth	1951	70
15	78	Buddy Rosar	1943	100
16	78	Buck Crouse	1925	105
17	78	Darrin Fletcher	1995	112
18	78	Milt May	1979	90
19	78	Cy Perkins	1924	84
20	78	Rick Cerone	1982	76
21	78	Ray Smith	1984	0	DNP
22	77	Hal Wagner	1944	124
23	77	Donovan Solano	2016	94
24	77	Jimmie Wilson	1929	112
25	77	Jim Price	1970	92
26	77	Earl Grace	1935	86
27	77	Bengie Molina	2003	101
28	77	Kirt Manwaring	1994	67
29	77	Einar Diaz	2001	79
30	77	Clint Courtney	1955	101
31	77	Zack Taylor	1927	66
32	77	Charlie Moore	1981	99
33	77	Ronny Paulino	2009	101
34	77	Rob Johnson	2011	61
35	77	Ramon Hernandez	2004	110
36	77	Brian Schneider	2005	98
37	77	Jeff Mathis	2011	46
38	77	Clyde Kluttz	1946	94
39	77	Nick Ahmed	2018	89
40	77	J. C. Martin	1965	84
41	77	Birdie Tebbetts	1941	87
42	77	Henry Blanco	2000	85
43	77	Paul Janish	2011	63
44	77	Bob Barton	1970	80
45	77	Gregg Zaun	1999	80
46	77	Joe Garagiola	1954	105
47	76	Mark Salas	1989	88
48	76	B.J. Surhoff	1993	87
49	76	Frank House	1958	89
50	76	Willie Bloomquist	2006	80
51	76	Daniel Descalso	2015	76
52	76	Sandy Alomar Jr.	1994	117
53	76	Wiki Gonzalez	2002	86
54	76	Billy Sullivan	1939	92
55	76	Tyler Saladino	2018	87
56	76	Scott Servais	1995	111
57	76	Greg Myers	1994	72
58	76	Marc Hill	1980	66
59	76	Sandy Leon	2017	74
60	76	Muddy Ruel	1924	90
61	76	Darwin Barney	2014	94
62	76	Bennie Tate	1930	88
63	76	Buck Rodgers	1967	83
64	76	Billy Shantz	1956	0	DNP
65	76	Raul Casanova	2001	104
66	76	Endy Chavez	2006	82
67	76	Vic Roznovsky	1967	56
68	76	Rick Dempsey	1978	101
69	76	Jesus Sucre	2016	96
70	76	Hal Naragon	1957	84
71	76	Toby Hall	2004	84
72	76	Mike Heath	1983	93
73	76	Hank Conger	2016	68
74	75	Hobie Landrith	1958	88
75	75	Jesus Flores	2013	0	DNP
76	75	Walker Cooper	1943	115
77	75	Keith Osik	1997	75
78	75	Brent Mayne	1996	83
79	75	Hal Smith	1959	90
80	75	Jerry Grote	1971	99
81	75	Johnny Gooch	1926	88
82	75	Mickey Owen	1944	95
83	75	Andres Blanco	2012	0	DNP
84	75	Bill Sarni	1956	91
85	75	Austin Romine	2017	66
86	75	Jerry McNertney	1965	0	DNP
87	75	Clyde Sukeforth	1930	78
88	75	Dick Bertell	1964	81
89	75	Alex Cintron	2007	67
90	75	Ron Brand	1968	76
91	75	Jace Peterson	2018	77
92	75	Bob Boone	1976	108
93	75	Jeff Reed	1991	83
94	75	Dave Skaggs	1979	80
95	75	Bryan Holaday	2016	83
96	75	Jake Gibbs	1967	74
97	75	Luis Rodriguez	2008	82
98	75	Herman Franks	1942	0	DNP
99	75	Jett Bandy	2018	63
100	75	Luke Sewell	1929	58

BP Annual Player Comments

Year		Comment
2019		Due to publishing agreements, the 2019 player comments and team essays are only available in the Baseball Prospectus 2019 book (available in hardcopy, and soon e-book and Kindle).
2018		Last year’s Annual comment suggested Vazquez consult with a sorceress to resurrect his bat. You’re welcome for the sage advice, Christian. Vazquez benefited from a .348 BABIP to post the best TAv of his short career, but there were real improvements in his approach, too. Vazquez went the other way with the ball more than ever and cut down on his strikeouts. Pair those advancements with the stellar defensive metrics you’d expect from a guy with Vazquez’s reputation and you get a solid starting catcher. We’ve long joked about Vazquez being a secret member of the Molina family, but our Similarity Index spits out a different, equally interesting name as Vazquez’s top comp: Jonathan Lucroy. That might be a tad optimistic, but if Vazquez keeps stealing strikes behind the plate and sporadically homering off of the game’s best relievers (this year it was Cody Allen), the Sox will take it.
2017		If you thought The Walking Dead had 2016’s ugliest moment with a bat, you didn’t catch much of Vazquez as a hitter. The defensive wunderkind finished 51st in TAv among catchers with at least 150 plate appearances, behind Juan Centeno, Kevin Plawecki and the sentient remains of A.J. Ellis. Seriously, Vazquez’s at-bats were so lifeless, Peter King kept asking baristas if they’d heard about them. Our catching metrics still love Vazquez as a framer, but his arm looked more good than legendary in his first post-Tommy John season. And his much-ballyhooed rapport with the pitching staff? It mattered so much in April that the Sox screwed with Blake Swihart, but so little by July that Vazquez lost playing time to Ryan Hanigan and Bryan frickin Holaday. In the era of three-year contracts for Jason Castro, players like Vazquez have value. But his bat needs some quality alone time with Melisandre if Vazquez is to be anything more than a backup.
2016		The Red Sox feature no shortage of exciting young players, but fans who'd suffered through Victor Martinez, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and A.J. Pierzynski were especially excited to watch Vazquez's defensive prowess last season. They were robbed of that chance on March 13th, when Vazquez threw out True Yankee Tyler Wade in a Grapefruit League matchup and his elbow popped. The good news is he will have had just about a full year to recover from Tommy John surgery, and he's expected to be ready for spring training. The bad news is his arm was his best weapon, and while his bat isn't so lifeless as to preclude the possibility of him starting for a first-division team, defense—specifically his ability to mow down runners—is his calling card. Vazquez showed great promise as a pitch-framer and game-caller in his rookie campaign, so even if his arm doesn't come all the way back, he's in for a long career. Any lingering TJ effects would be a damn shame, though, because he had the Molina Starter Kit in his toolbag before he went under the knife.
2015		If Fausto Carmona and Leo Nunez fooled you with their noms de play, you can be forgiven. But if you've truly been duped into believing Vazquez isn't the fourth Molina brother, you're not paying attention. Just 55 games into his MLB career, Vazquez already has a well earned reputation as one of the majors' best defensive catchers. He's an excellent pitch-framer, blocks the ball well and has an absurd arm, throwing out 15 of 29 would-be basestealers in the majors last season with pop times under 1.8 seconds. While he'll need to hit better than he did in 2014 to start for a contender, the bar is set at merely "passable" given the glove's value. The dream is that he ends up somewhere between Yadier and Bengie on the Molina scale for offense, but even if it's more likely he settles between Bengie and Jose, he's still an exciting young backstop.
2014		Blake Swihart deservedly gets the attention, but Vazquez has a real chance to be much better as a major-league backstop than as a prospect. Vazquez's pop times are off-the-charts ridiculous, scouts and his coaches laud him for his precocious handling of the pitching staff and the Brothers Molina think enough of him to include him in their offseason training in Puerto Rico. While Vazquez could thrive as an all-defense backup, he has real offensive skills. Vazquez is patient, and while his defense has pushed him through the system faster than his bat would have liked, he batted .289/.376/.395 with more walks than strikeouts at Double-A. As Vazquez adjusts slowly to new levels, a full season at Triple-A is key to having him ready for 2015 and the potential hole behind the plate in Boston.

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