Red Sox's Chaim Bloom Explains How He Plans To Address Catcher Position

Bloom did not seem overly confident in his current group of catchers

It's fair to say that Boston got more than expected from their catching combination of Reese McGuire and Connor Wong to close out the season, but Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom does not appear content with the duo.

When asked how he views the catching situation, Bloom had an interesting response.

"I think both of these guys showed well," Bloom told reporters in reference to McGuire and Wong, as seen on NESN's broadcast Thursday. "Which is good for them, good for us. We didn't want to be in the position we were in, in the end, but we tried to make the most of that position in terms of giving them opportunities. Both for their growth and benefit and also for ours. 

"I think they definitely raise the floor of what we have. Now that said, this is one of the areas that I fully expect we're going to explore additions. It's nice to know we have at least two guys that are familiar with how we do things, that showed a lot of good things but we owe it to ourselves and everybody who cares about this team to look to get better, and catcher is certainly not going to be an exception to that."

Both players shined behind the plate, which was expected, but their offensive potential was somewhat of a shock.

McGuire was fantastic for Boston. He posted a .337 average with nine extra-base hits including three home runs, 12 RBIs and a .877 OPS in 36 games since coming over from the Chicago White Sox one day before the Major League Baseball trade deadline.

The 27-year-old also nabbed five of 12 attempted base stealers in limited action. 

Wong did not have nearly as strong of an offensive campaign at the MLB level, but absolutely dominated with Triple-A Worcester in the second half of the season, showing a previously unproven offensive ceiling. 

In his last 16 games prior to being called up, Wong hit .368 with nine home runs and 22 RBIs to go along with a 1.249 OPS. That home run outburst out-tallied the eight he hit in 2021 across 50 games at the same level. 

Still, Bloom is going to have his eyes peeled in the open market for a potential upgrade. McGuire did more than enough to earn a spot as the backup at the very least, but Wong has yet to prove himself at the big league level, in albeit a short sample size. 

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