{"id":548767,"date":"2026-02-01T07:02:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T07:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/548767\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T07:02:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T07:02:19","slug":"red-sox-sign-former-1st-round-pick-catcher-to-free-agent-contract-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/548767\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox sign former 1st-round pick catcher to free agent contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Sox sign former 1st-round pick catcher to free agent contract<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Boston Red Sox<\/a> have added to their catching depth a few weeks before pitchers and catchers report to spring training.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The new guy: Matt Thaiss.<\/p>\n

His free agent signing was reported on Saturday by Andrew Parker<\/a>. It’s a minor league contract with an invite to major league spring training.<\/p>\n

Thaiss was originally a first-round pick by the Angels in the 2016 MLB Draft out of the University of Virginia.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0How Jose Ramirez is on pace to become Cleveland’s Derek Jeter<\/a><\/p>\n

He then played his first six MLB seasons for the Angels.<\/p>\n

They mostly moved Thaiss out from behind the plate to try and let his bat shine, but he hit just .208 in his career with the Angels.<\/p>\n

Thaiss then split the 2025 season between the Chicago White Sox<\/a> and the Tampa Bay Rays<\/a>, and he caught for both of them a bit.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

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In 2025 combined, he batted .218 in 60 games with six doubles, one triple and one home run. He had a .638 OPS.<\/p>\n

Thaiss is 30 years old now, a 5-foot-11, 215-pound catcher who bats left-handed.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox have Carlos Narvaez lined up to be their starting catcher. Connor Wong is slated to be the backup catcher, but after a rough 2025 season for him, it seems like someone could take his spot with a strong spring. Maybe Thaiss will be that guy.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Sox sign former 1st-round pick catcher to free agent contract originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[5,141,48,2542,789,49,135,790,6954,350,865,7107,4,877,89,2543,151,68,5317,14238],"class_list":["post-548767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-red-sox","tag-baseball","tag-boston","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-bostonredsox","tag-carlos-narvaez","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-cleveland","tag-connor-wong","tag-derek-jeter","tag-free-agent","tag-jose-ramirez","tag-matt-thaiss","tag-mlb","tag-paul-skenes","tag-red-sox","tag-redsox","tag-spring-training","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-the-angels","tag-university-of-virginia"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115994095996174417","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}