Red Sox acquire Jhonny Pereda

Back when baseball and sports were still a thing, the Red Sox had designated Travis Lakins for assignment and then eventually sent him to the Cubs in a trade for a player to be named later. Lakins, as it turns out, would not last with the Cubs very long and was quickly designated for assignment there and is now in the Orioles organization. The Cubs still owe compensation for that deal, however, and today the Red Sox got it. The team announced on Monday that they had acquired catcher Jhonny Pereda from the Cubs to complete that Lakins deal.

Pereda, who turns 24 in a few weeks, was not on the 40-man roster in Chicago and thus there does not need to be a corresponding roster move to make room for him on the Boston roster. As one would expect in a deal like this, he is also not particularly exciting. He hasn’t placed on any Cubs top prospect list this year as far as I can tell.

Last year, the backstop spent the year at Double-A Tennessee, playing in 98 games and hitting .241/.336/.305, a bit of a step back from 2018 when he posted a .710 OPS at High-A. On the more positive side, however, he did take home a minor-league Gold Glove for his efforts behind the dish in 2019, though that could potentially be a bit misleading. He did well at throwing at baserunners and avoiding errors, but at least by Baseball Prospectus’s metrics — which are admittedly less reliable in the minors — he was a well below-average pitch framer in Double-A.

Ultimately, Pereda’s most likely role is that of an emergency depth third-string type of catcher, which is something that is certainly needed in every organization. As for the coming year, assuming baseball happens in 2020, he fits in with kind of a glut of catchers in Jett Bandy, Juan Centeno, Connor Wong, Roldani Baldwin and Austin Rei (not to mention Jonathan Lucroy if he both doesn’t make the majors and accepts a minor-league assignment) looking for playing time in the top two levels of the system. Mostly, though, I’m just relieved to write about a transaction, no matter how minor it may be.