For the second time in as many weeks, the Red Sox signed a veteran catcher to a minor-league contract.
After adding two-time Gold Glove Award winner Roberto Perez last Wednesday, Boston inked Mark Kolozsvary to a similar minors pact on Friday, according to ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel. Like Perez, Kolozsvary also received an invitation to major-league spring training.
Kolozsvary, 28, broke in with the Reds last April after originally being selected by the club in the seventh round of the 2017 amateur draft out of Florida. The right-handed hitter appeared in 10 games across four separate stints for Cincinnati, going 4-for-20 (.200) with two doubles, one home run, three RBIs, three runs scored, one walk, and nine strikeouts.
The Reds designated Kolozsvary for assignment last October before losing him on waivers to the Orioles. Baltimore, in turn, successfully outrighted the Florida native in November to keep him in the organization without occupying a spot on its 40-man roster.
Kolozsvary served as upper-minors catching depth for the first three months of the 2023 season. His contract was then selected from Triple-A Norfolk on June 13 as a corresponding move for Ryan Mountcastle hitting the injured list with vertigo. He made his Orioles debut that same night but did not register a plate appearance, instead serving as a defensive replacement for Adley Rutschman in the ninth inning of an 11-6 win over the Blue Jays at Camden Yards.
The following afternoon, Kolozsvary was designated for assignment by the Orioles. He cleared waivers shortly thereafter and elected free agency in lieu of an outright assignment to the minor-leagues, which he had the right to do after already being outrighted once before in his career. Kolozsvary then signed a minors pact with the Twins on June 20 and spent the rest of the year at Triple-A St. Paul.
For his big-league career, Kolozsvary has logged 61 total innings at catcher and has thrown out one of five potential base stealers while allowing two passed balls. In 29 games between Double-A Bowie, Norfolk, and St. Paul this past season, the 5-foot-8, 185-pound backstop accrued 234 innings behind the plate and threw out seven of 34 would-be base stealers without allowing a single passed ball.
Offensively, Kolozsvary is a lifetime .211/.320/.341 hitter with 57 doubles, three triples, 24 home runs, 113 RBIs, 144 runs scored, five stolen bases, 117 walks, and 347 strikeouts in 325 career minor-league games (1,211 plate appearances). That includes a .174/.282/.301 slash line with 10 doubles, one triple, seven homers, 20 runs driven in, 34 runs scored, one stolen base, 22 walks, and 98 strikeouts in 87 games (300 plate appearances) at the Triple-A level.
Kolozsvary, who does not turn 29 until next September, figures to provide the Red Sox with experienced catching depth at Triple-A Worcester in 2024. As things stand now, Boston has just two catchers on its current 40-man roster in Connor Wong and Reese McGuire. While Perez and Mark Kolozsvary are the only two backstops to receive non-roster invites to spring training thus far, Stephen Scott and minor-league Rule 5 pickup Mickey Gasper are among those who project to be in the mix for reps once camp begins in February.
To that end, Kolozsvary should already be familiar with some of his new teammates on the Red Sox. Like first baseman Triston Casas and fellow non-roster invitees Eddy Alvarez and Jamie Westbrook, Kolozsvary helped the United States take home a silver medal at the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
(Picture of Mark Kolozsvary: Julio Aguilar/Getty Images)