Red Sox catchers Rutschman, Rogers navigate rare midseason transition

Adley Rutschman stood at Fenway Park on a Tuesday in early August, taking in his new surroundings as a member of the Red Sox. He had just been traded—a first in his career—and the weight of the moment was not lost on him. "It's a unique situation," he said simply. "I've never been traded before."

The challenge facing Rutschman and his fellow new acquisition Jake Rogers is one of baseball's most delicate puzzles: how to build trust with a pitching staff in a matter of days rather than months. History suggests it is nearly impossible. In all of professional baseball, only one catcher acquired via midseason trade has started a World Series game for a championship team. That was Christian Vázquez, who caught for the Astros in 2022—three months after the Red Sox had dealt him away in exchange for Wilyer Abreu and Enmanuel Valdez. Vázquez even navigated a four-pitcher no-hitter in Game 4 of that series, a feat that underscores just how rare and difficult the transition truly is.

Rogers arrived with a different kind of experience. He had already been traded once in the span of a week, shipped from Detroit to Baltimore on July 30 before the Red Sox claimed him. That recent upheaval gave him clarity about what lay ahead. "It's a little bit of a thrown-in-the-fire situation," he acknowledged. He had spent the previous night studying video of the opposing White Sox lineup and attending meetings to learn the Red Sox pitchers' tendencies. But Rogers understood that real knowledge comes only through repetition. Usage percentages and pitch selection patterns could be absorbed quickly from data, he explained, but understanding a pitcher's go-to pitches in specific counts—ahead, behind, with two strikes—required actual catching. "It takes two or three times to kind of get to know that," he said. "Once that happens, it makes the flow a little easier."

Rutschman, meanwhile, found himself in an unexpected position of advantage. A wrist injury had landed him on the disabled list, which meant he could not play in games but was free to catch bullpen sessions with his new teammates and spend extended time in the dugout observing and learning. He intended to make full use of that window. "I'm definitely going to try and utilize the time as much as possible to be able to get to know these guys and just really understand what works best, how I can best serve them," he said.

Craig Breslow, the Red Sox's chief baseball officer, acknowledged the inherent awkwardness of the situation but expressed confidence in both catchers' ability to navigate it. "It's not nothing, but also wouldn't want to overstate it," he said. "These guys are professionals, and they've thrown to different catchers, whether that was because of injury or performance or whatever the case is. I think what it comes down to is building relationships and trust. And, like I said, everything that we've learned about Adley is he is fantastic at doing that."

Modern baseball has introduced tools that did not exist in earlier eras. The wireless PitchCom system—which allows catchers and pitchers to communicate without traditional hand signals—has made the adjustment process somewhat less cumbersome. Jonah Heim, an Oakland catcher acquired from Atlanta in May, noted that the technology had eased his own transition. "It's not the easiest thing to learn a new staff," he said. "As a catcher, that's why you like spring training to get to know these guys in games that don't matter. But I feel like if I just catch a guy in a game one time, I can kind of feel it out that way, and after that, we get in a pretty good rhythm."

Rutschman and Rogers did not have the luxury of spring training with their new organization. But between the wireless communication system, the professionalism of major league pitchers accustomed to working with different catchers, and the determination of two men who understood what was at stake, the Red Sox were betting they could compress months of chemistry into weeks. Whether that bet would pay off remained to be seen.