The Red Sox announced Thursday that they have selected wide receiver contracts. Jonathan Lucroy and right-handed Dylan Covey. Recent signer Zack Godley did not make the cut, nor the right Chris Mazza, but both will report to the organization’s alternative training site. The Red Sox also remembered rights Colten Brewer and Phillips Valdez as well as left-handed Matt Hall, Josh Osich and Jeffrey springs.
Lucroy, 34, gives the Red Sox another shooting option alongside Christian Vázquez and Kevin Plawecki. He is not the All-Star caliber player he once was, but he will give the club plenty of experience to help with a team of patch pitchers.
The 2019 season marked the third consecutive year of what has been a precipitous decline for Lucroy. Possibly the game’s best full receiver, Lucroy hit just .232 / .305 / .355 between the Angels and the Cubs last season and has posted a tepid cut of .248 / .315 / .350 in 1,263 plate appearances since on Opening Day 2017 His previously dropped shot framing skills have plummeted and are now below the league average, and Lucroy’s catch theft rate has dropped since it peaked at 39 percent in 2016 .
Covey, 28, pitched 250 1/3 innings in the big leagues, but never established himself as a consistent contributor. He got off to a rough start with ChiSox in 2018, pitching 40 1/3 innings with a 2.90 ERA and a K / BB ratio of 35 to 16, but his results quickly went south and have not recovered since then despite several opportunities. In total, he has a career of 6.54 ERA and 5.56 FIP in the big leagues.
Still, Covey was at one point a first-round pick and lasted less than two weeks as a free agent this winter when the White Sox released him. Covey quickly caught on to the Rays, with whom current Red Sox baseball chief Chaim Bloom went from being an intern to being a senior vice president of baseball operations. Bloom was already with the Red Sox when Covey landed in Tampa Bay, but it seems likely that the Rays had some interest in the right thing going back to Bloom’s days with the team.
