It’s extremely difficult to become a standout player at any position in Major League Baseball, but catcher may well be the toughest one.
Game-calling. Pitch-framing. Blocking. Throwing. Withstanding nine innings in an awkward squat. And trying to still produce on offense after all of that extra work that most hitters don’t have to do. Fewer and fewer catchers are becoming their teams’ full-time starters these days, and it’s easy to see why.
Blake Sabol, who has three partial seasons of major league experience behind the plate with the San Francisco Giants and Boston Red Sox, has learned some of those lessons the hard way.
After a season in which he was traded, designated for assignment, then traded again, Sabol’s professional career reached a low point on Wednesday, when he was released by the Chicago White Sox organization, per the official transactions log of Minor League Baseball.
Sabol never cracked the White Sox’s 40-man roster, as he was traded in July, a month after the Red Sox outrighted him to Triple-A. He did appear in eight games at the major league level for the Red Sox before the trade, going 2-for-16 at the plate with a double and committing two errors in the same game — against the White Sox in an embarrassing 11-2 April loss.
The 2023 season was Sabol’s most promising as a professional, as he got into 110 games for the Giants and produced a respectable 92 OPS+. But he was also in the first percentile among all catchers with negative-19 blocks above average.
Chicago is well set at the catching position, as Kyle Teel (who arrived in a much more publicized trade with the Red Sox) put together a strong rookie campaign and has a firm grip on the starting role. It was clear Sabol didn’t factor into the plans of the 60-win White Sox, but can he find himself a minor-league role and a pathway back to the big leagues elsewhere?
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