Monday night is the deadline for teams to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players. For the Red Sox, there were only a few questions marks heading into this deadline, with the biggest being backup catcher Sandy León. Projected to make just under $3 million, it wasn’t clear the team wanted to spend that much on a backup catcher who, while great defensively, still came in below replacement level in 2019 because of his skills (or lack thereof) at the plate.
It turns out they would not wait until the deadline to make that decision and instead found a team that would value León that much.