Red Sox sign catcher David Ross

Career caught stealing % of 39 and a 44% caught stealing % last year. It's been a huge weakness for this team, very underrated player.

Ken Rosenthal ‏@ken_Rosenthal
Ross will be “more than a backup but not a starter” for #RedSox, source says. Team could move Salty or Lavarnway. Plans unclear.

Not saying this is what they should do but Salty was playing first in Texas. Until they have another firstbaseman I'll keep that in mind and if they do part ways with him I hope they do it before they acquire that firstbaseman as not to diminish his perceived value.

I love the signing as well, and I was also wondering how this affects our interest in Napoli. This could be a case where the Red Sox end up completely rebuild the catching position by trading Salty and Lavarnway. The catching market is awful and the Red Sox have two assets.

A Napoli/Ross combo, would allow Ross to play "more than a back-up". While at the same time getting some prospects for Salty who I don't think fits with the direction of the club due to poor OBP and high K rate.

Also, Rosenthal reported the deal is 2/6.2

If Ross is so good defensively, why not just give him 500 AB, given that he is also well above-average offensively? It's hard to see why he's never gotten the chance to be a regular.

It shouldn't impact the pursuit Napoli, with 1B still wide open.

I like this signing as well, but am wondering why the Braves weren't interested at that price. A cursory search shows that McCann is the only catcher on their 40 man and the next nearest decent catching prospect is in AA.

Love this move for the flexibility it gives the Sox. Here are the options I see.

1. Trade either salty or lava for another piece... I hope it is salty if they do trade

2. Platoon salty at first and catcher while lava develops in the minors.

3. Platoon lava and ross while lava develops and is mentored

I also see this as a move geared towards helping the pitching staff after a horrible year. How is ross at calling a game?

Sent from my SGH-T999 using proboards

Liked Baseball Analytics assessment that Ross will give Salty a break against tough lefty pitchers (Sabathia, Price, etc.), while gining Lavarnway a chance to develop.

Agree with (and enjoyed the read of) everything in the post except "signed at less than value". I'm not sure there's a backup in the league that comes close to what Ross will make per year. Seems like a strong indication they're pretty far along a path that will land a catcher (most likely Salty) somewhere else.

ch-ch-ch-changes.....

My opinion is also to trade Saltalamacchia. There's no need for "Lavarnaway to work out the kinks". He simply needs to play, just as Reddick simply needed to play. The team's unwillingness to let their young guys do that, play it out by getting PAs under their belts and learning the pitchers in the majors, has been a glaring weakness over the last few years.

The analyst also contradicts himself with this piece of information: .295/.382/.511

That's Lavarnaway's line in AAA over the last two years. There is absolutely nothing left for him to "work out" offensively in Pawtucket. The small sample size at the end of last year is just that - a small sample size. As for his defensive chops, he can go to finishing school with Ross as the tutor. Ross has a great reputation with young players. Take advantage of that.

Once again, this is a golden opportunity to leverage those greatly lowered expectations. There's no rational reason, either for his benefit or the team's, to send Lavarnaway back down.

If the FO is wise to this, they'll engineer a trade.

Edit: I'm not done venting....

I'll lay money down right now that if the team gives him the playing time he'll be much more valuable offensively than Saltalamacchia. He can hit home runs at half the rate and still bring more to the table because of his discipline. It's that simple.

In the end the team will trade whichever catcher brings back the best return.

As I said on Twitter, I really disagree with the Baseball Analytics assessment, also proffered elsewhere, that Lavarnway will go to Triple-A (although that wasn't the impetus for that tweet at the time).

To be frank, he could stand to work out kinks. If you look at his numbers, he got on base relatively consistently all year, and hit for decent average, but his power was lacking. His overall numbers are bolstered by a June in which he slugged .667, hit 10 of his 22 AAA doubles/4 of his 8 home runs, and was our Player of the Month (to be more precise, his hot period was something like 5/22 through 7/1). In shortening his swing, he lost his power, and I think trying to then get the power back is what threw him out of whack at the end of the year.

Now, that said, I'm not sure those are "Triple-A" kinks. Major Leaguers work on that kind of thing all the time, and I think he's also at the Iglesias point where sending him back to Pawtucket isn't really productive - either use him or trade him to someone who will.

I'll echo what some on Twitter have said: I'm not sure a Lavarnway/Ross catching combo makes a lot of sense, or at least as much sense as a Salty/Ross platoon does. I don't know how that means things will shake down, but that appears to be the situation at present.