Major League Baseball is a bottom-line business. Either you produce, or you get replaced. That reality applies to everyone, whether or not they feel their position is secured. From highly-paid veterans to former first-round picks, all players are expendable if the front office thinks someone else can do the job better.
Such was the reality for a veteran Boston Red Sox catcher at this season’s trade deadline, when the team brought in an unexpected replacement from a division rival.
Reese McGuire, who was designated for assignment by the Red Sox on July 28, the day after the team traded for Danny Jansen from the Toronto Blue Jays, told Christopher Smith of MassLive that the move took him by surprise.
“It’s tough because I feel like I belong in the big leagues and this one did hurt me a lot,” McGuire said, per Smith. It kind of kicked me to the ground to be honest. Especially when no team claimed me. That was kind of the icing on the cake. It was like, ‘Holy (expletive). This is really happening right now.’
McGuire also said that the move caught the entire Red Sox clubhouse off guard.
“I felt like we were a really, really close-knit group,” McGuire said. “Everyone was locked in and ready for that second half to kick off. Unfortunately for me, that move was made, which pretty much put the writing on the wall that the position was going to be filled.”
Clubhouse chemistry is always tricky to navigate at the trade deadline, especially if a player being supplanted is popular among his teammates. But Jansen’s performance at the plate has to be helping smooth things out. The seven-year Blue Jay is 7-for-19 with two home runs since coming to Boston.
McGuire, 29, went unclaimed on waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Worcester. A first-round pick of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2013, McGuire owns a career .664 OPS over parts of seven seasons. He struggled with the bat this season, hitting just .209 with a .280 on-base percentage.