NEW YORK -- The legend of Sandy Leon begins in Maracay, a city in northern Venezuela near the Caribbean coast. It was there last October that Eddie Perez saw something almost nobody else did.
A former major league catcher and possible future manager, Perez was getting ready to manage Tigres de Aragua, a team in the Venezuelan winter league. He needed a catcher, so he made his one and only roster request to general manager Carlos Guillen, another ex-big leaguer: Please, Perez said, trade for Sandy Leon.
"I told Carlos, 'Look, I want this kid. I need a catcher who can take care of the pitchers, who can block and who can throw people out,'" Perez said by phone Sunday morning. "He said, 'Well, he's not hitting. I said, 'Carlos, you were a switch-hitter, he's a switch-hitter. You might help him as a hitter, but we need this kid.’ To me, he was the best defensive catcher in the league.' I said, 'If we want to win, this is the guy we need to get.' And as soon as we got him, I knew we were going to win a lot of games."
Three months later, with Leon behind the plate, the Tigres won the Venezuelan championship and advanced to the Caribbean Series, where they lost to Mexico in the finals. And now, five months after that, Leon is batting .458 with 13 RBIs and a 1.212 OPS in 59 at-bats for the Boston Red Sox and has improbably leapfrogged touted Christian Vazquez and Blake Swihart to take over as the team's primary catcher despite opening the season as little more than a depth option in Triple-A.
Good luck finding a more unlikely success story in the majors this season.
"He's far surpassed the [expected] offensive production to date," Red Sox manager John Farrell said Saturday after Leon crushed a three-run homer to left field at Yankee Stadium to fuel a 5-2 victory, Boston’s sixth consecutive win. "He's come up in big spots, he's had very good at-bats, deep counts. Going back to the Texas series [last month], he's come up big for us. And he's done a very good job of running the game behind the plate."
Perez, whose in-season job is coaching first base for the Atlanta Braves, would be lying if he said he expected Leon to morph into the second coming of Pudge Rodriguez. But he also believed the 27-year-old had been underestimated as a defensive-only catcher who projected as only a borderline backup.
There was nothing to indicate otherwise. Entering this season, Leon was a .187 hitter in 209 career big-league at-bats. The bulk of his opportunity came last season after the Washington Nationals sold him to the Red Sox at the end of spring training. With Vazquez lost to Tommy John surgery and Ryan Hanigan breaking his finger in early May, Leon backed up Swihart and batted .184 in 114 at-bats. Too often, Leon seemed like an automatic out.
The Red Sox designated Leon for assignment after the season, and to their surprise, he cleared waivers.
"As an evaluator, you look at Sandy, his defense always has been very steady. The better he hits, the more he’ll play,” said Bob Boone, a Nationals senior adviser in charge of player development and a former big league catcher. "He had shown it in spurts throughout the minor leagues. But you want both in a starter. There's a lot of great backup catchers all over baseball. The reason is that they can really catch and they don't hit well. You're always looking for a guy like we have in Wilson Ramos."
Said Farrell: "I think there were a number of us who felt like we wouldn't see him again."
Perez advocated for Leon with the Braves, just as he had in winter ball. But the Red Sox offered a split contract that paid Leon $273,000 in the minors, a handsome sum by Triple-A standards designed to ensure he would remain in the organization even though he didn't stand much of a chance to make the big league team with Swihart, Vazquez and Hanigan ahead of him on the depth chart.
"I felt bad because I didn't think [the Braves] could match that money," Perez said. "When he told me the numbers, I said, 'What are you waiting for? Sign it.' He said, 'It's not about the money.' I said, 'I understand because you need to be in the big leagues, and I know you have the tools to be in the big leagues.' I know they have Vazquez, and he's really good, he's a young guy, he can catch. But you never know. You just need an opportunity. I told him, 'You have a nice contract, so sign it right away.'"
Leon signed with the Red Sox the next day, then went to work with Perez and Guillen to turn himself into a more competent hitter. He played more than 30 consecutive games for the Tigres, a workload that Farrell said "raised a number of eyebrows" with the Red Sox because it illustrated Leon's desire to improve.
"It's pretty special. It hasn't been any soft .400. It's been well-struck from both sides of the plate. And I love seeing it. He's a great person, great ballplayer, great teammate, and he's doing a lot to help this team." Jackie Bradley Jr. on Sandy Leon
With help from Guillen, Leon made an adjustment to his stance, standing taller at the plate rather than crouching. But the biggest difference, according to Perez, was his mindset. Two years ago, when Perez managed Leon on a winter league team in Zulia, Venezuela, he saw a passive hitter who allowed opposing pitchers to dictate his at-bats.
"I don't know if it was Carlos Guillen who told him or somebody else who told him, 'Look, you need to go out and swing the bat,'" Perez said. "He was taking too many pitches for strikes. I think Carlos said, 'Just go out there and swing, man. I know he's a patient hitter. I know he takes a lot of walks, too. But that's the biggest difference I see from years ago to now. He goes out there and swings.”
Leon didn't get his latest chance with the Red Sox until the second week of June after Hanigan strained his neck and Swihart badly sprained his ankle playing left field. In his first start, June 11 in Minnesota, Leon went 4-for-4 with a double, two RBIs and a walk. Six days later, he notched three hits at Fenway Park against the Seattle Mariners.
And on June 24, Leon came off the bench in the ninth inning and won an 11-pitch duel with Texas Rangers reliever Jake Diekman to deliver an RBI single in what qualifies as the Red Sox's most impressive at-bat for the season.
“It’s all about confidence,” Leon said. “It feels good. But it’s only like 60 at-bats. I know it’s a lot of hits in 60 at-bats, but like I say, I’m trying to keep it simple.”
When Hanigan returned from the disabled list, the Red Sox chose Leon over light-hitting Vazquez, a defensive whiz who nevertheless was batting .226 with a .583 OPS. Leon, meanwhile, couldn’t have been sent back to the minors without being exposed to waivers. This time, he never would’ve cleared.
“It's pretty special,” center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. said. “It hasn't been any soft .400. It's been well-struck from both sides of the plate. And I love seeing it. He's a great person, great ballplayer, great teammate, and he's doing a lot to help this team."
Who would've thought?
Only Perez, it seems.
"We talked about it after he signed back with Boston, and I said, 'You just need a chance, and wait, because you're going to get it. Just be prepared and don't complain,'" Perez said. "I told him, 'You're going to get that chance, and as soon as you get it, I know you're going to be OK.'"