Catcher has been the biggest position of need for the Red Sox even amid their recent surge back into the thick of the playoff race, and they addressed it in a big way with a rare inter-division trade with the Orioles for former No. 1 overall pick Adley Rutschman. Even with Rutschman's relative struggles in recent years, it represents a potentially significant upgrade for the Red Sox – albeit one with a lot of risk, both in terms of Rutschman's outlook and the talent they sent out to acquire him.
Let's take a bit of a deeper look at this from both sides.
Red Sox acquire Adley Rutschman and Jake Rogers
We can safely ignore Rogers, here, who is just a depth piece. Rutschman is obviously the headliner, and it's pretty wild to see the one-time crown jewel of the Orioles' rebuild going to a divisional rival during what was supposed to be their core's peak. That speaks to how far both Rutschman and the Orioles' rebuild in general have fallen in recent years – though the price the Red Sox paid for Rutschman is a sign that plenty inside of baseball still believe he can be an impact player.
We haven't seen that side of Rutschman for longer than a few weeks since 2023, though. Injuries have played a big role in that – a mid-season hand injury wrecked Rutschman's 2024, and he has been on the IL five times in the past two seasons with a variety of injuries:
- June 21-July 28, 2025: On the IL with a left oblique injury
- Aug. 21-Sept. 22, 2025: On the IL with a right oblique injury
- April 11- 21, 2026: On the IL with a left ankle injury
- June 21-28, 2026: On the IL with a concussion
- July 20, 2026: On the IL with a left wrist injury (still out)
That's an awful lot of wear and tear! And on the one hand, these injuries might help explain why Rutschman hasn't been a difference maker the past few years; then there's that other hand that's constantly getting nicked by foul balls. The price of being a catcher is you take a pounding back there. Catchers tend to debut later than players at other positions and they tend to have shorter peaks, and you can't necessarily bet on them to bounce back once the decline phase starts.
For his part, Rutschman's underlying skill set still looks quite strong, if not necessarily MVP-caliber anymore. It all starts with a terrific approach at the plate which remains intact, with a 14.1% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate for the season. The quality of contact has never been quite as dominant as you would expect for a player of Rutschman's caliber, but in 2026 he has a .361 expected wOBA on contact and an 89.4 mph average exit velocity – average-ish numbers, but not bad! Combine that with his excellent approach at the plate and Rutschman has a .348 expected wOBA on the season, a bit better than his .333 actual mark.
And it's a huge upgrade from what the Red Sox have gotten from their catchers this season. Boston's catchers rank 23rd in the majors with a .280 wOBA for the season, and while they are generally pretty decent defensively, they still collectively rank as a bottom-five unit in FanGraphs' version of WAR at just 0.2. Rutschman on his own is at 2.3 in just 67 games, so as long as he's on the field, this is a clear win for the Red Sox.
That's a bigger question than you'd like, especially since he's currently out with a wrist injury. There was a bit of a gap between when the trade was reported as done and when it was finalized, but the Red Sox ultimately okayed his medicals, so clearly they aren't too worried. We don't have a timetable for Rutschman's return, but I would guess we're looking at something on the order of weeks rather than months at this point.
It's a big swing for the Red Sox, but it's one that does at least carry an additional year of club control for 2027 to sweeten the deal. If all Rutschman is now is what he has been this season, you can still reasonably expect the Red Sox to be 3-5 wins better than they were prior to the deal over the course of a season. If he can stay healthy and bounce back to his pre-2024 form, Rutschman has even more upside than that. I don't expect it to happen, but you can see why the Red Sox were willing to take the chance.
But they did pay a hefty price for it.
Orioles acquire pitching prospects Anthony Eyanson and Kyson Witherspoon, outfield prospect Enddy Azocar, and catcher Carlos Narvaez
The pitchers are definitely the jewels of this return, and it's a pretty staggering return for just a year and two months of a guy who hasn't really played like a superstar in three years. All three prospects here entered the season inside of the team's top 10 list at FanGraphs.com, and Eyanson was FanGraphs' No. 26 prospect in the entire league at the mid-season point. He has a 1.32 ERA with 94 strikeouts to just 26 walks in 68.1 innings this season while reaching Double-A as a 21-year-old inhis first pro season. His control hasn't been quite as sharp since the promotion to Double-A, but he's still missing plenty of bats, generating tons of groundballs, and generally looking like he hasn't really been challenged by pro hitters yet. He's not viewed as a can't-miss prospect, necessarily – BaseballProspectus has him outside of the top-50 in their mid-season updated list – but it's a nice starting point for a prospect package.
Witherspoon hasn't helped his status nearly as much in his first season since being selected 15th overall out of Oklahoma. He has a 4.78 ERA in 75.1 innings in High-A, striking out a disappointing 24.2% of opposing hitters with an equally mediocre 10.6% walk rate. Still, he was a top-100 prospect coming into the season and his numbers could be affected by some attempts to change his delivery and approach early in the season, and he still has a five-pitch arsenal that could play up with some tweaks to the secondaries especially. Witherspoon doesn't necessarily look like an impact arm right now, but you'll always take an opportunity to try to get a very recent first-round pick and set them right.
Azocar is the least heralded of the three, but he's enjoying a breakout season of his own across two levels of A ball. He is hitting .286/.341/.540 with 18 homers, and his 6-foot-2 frame suggests the power breakout especially may not be a fluke. Questions abound, as they so often do with young players, about his hit tool, but the presence of pop and enough athleticism to project as a potential center fielder make him an excellent high-variance third piece in this trade.
Add CBS Sports on Google Join the Conversation comments
