Red Sox claim catcher Bryan Holaday

The Red Sox have claimed catcher Bryan Holaday off waivers from the Texas Rangers according to Evan Drellich, perhaps spelling the end for Ryan Hanigan's time in a Red Sox uniform.

Let's go ahead and get this out of the way: Bryan Holaday is not terribly good. He holds a career 75 OPS+, if he's found a little pop over the last couple seasons, that doesn't change the overall picture much. He also isn't particularly impressive behind the plate, particularly in the slightly ethereal department of pitch framing.

But for all that Holaday is lacking in the world of stats both tangible and otherwise, Ryan Hanigan has just been kind of a mess. He's hitting to a .437 OPS and 11 wRC+. That's one of the worst bats in the majors, well below the mendoza line, and clearly into black hole territory where you pretty much have to assume the out.

If, indeed, Hanigan is on the way out, then that will mean the Red Sox have to designate a new catcher for knuckleballer Steven Wright, be it Leon or Holaday or maybe someone else if the Sox have even more coming here. Christian Vazquez can still be found in Triple-A, for instance. But if it's always tempting fate to suggest things can't get any worse, particularly when the knuckleball is involved, suffice it to say that Hanigan is no Mirabelli when it comes to catching baseball's strangest pitch.