Boston Red Sox All-Decade team from 2010-2019 seasons

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BOSTON – APRIL 04: Victor Martinez #41 of the Boston Red Sox gets a hit as Jorge Posada #20 of the New York Yankees defends on April 4, 2010 during Opening Night at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) /

Catcher: Victor Martinez

Boston acquired Victor Martinez at the 2009 trade deadline and his bat gave them a lift down the stretch to lead them to the postseason. He hit a blistering .336 with a .912 OPS in 56 games with the Red Sox that season.

Martinez served as the backup catcher to Jason Varitek while seeing a significant chunk of his playing time at first base. The following year is when he began to take the reigns away from the veteran behind the plate. Following in the footsteps of one of the best catchers in franchise history is no easy task but Martinez was ready for the challenge.

Martinez caught 110 games for the Red Sox in 2010, while seeing limited time at first and DH. He was an All-Star in his only full season in Boston, hitting .302/.351/.493 with 20 home runs and 79 RBI.

Christian Vazquez leads all Red Sox catchers this decade with 9.0 WAR, per FanGraphs. That’s significantly higher than the 3.7 fWAR that Martinez produced in Boston, although it took Vazquez about three times as many games to compile that total. His breakout season in 2019 shows Vazquez is poised to lead the position into the next decade but his peak still falls a bit short of what Martinez did in his limited time here. Plus, Vazquez has a couple of ugly seasons on his resume while he was developing into a top-notch catcher and dealing with injuries.

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