Years-long relationship led Red Sox to Kyle Teel, their catcher of the future

Mahwah, N.J., sits roughly 25 miles northwest of Yankee Stadium, so naturally, Kyle Teel grew up a Yankees fan.

Yet on Sunday night, when the No. 14 overall pick by the Red Sox in the 2023 MLB Draft was asked about switching his allegiances to Boston, he didn’t skip a beat.

“Growing up, it’s kind of funny, I was a Yankees fan, but now I bleed red,” he said. “I’m excited to get going.”

Advertisement

It was an obvious answer, of course.

But the fact that Teel has already worn a Red Sox jersey while playing in a game at Fenway Park probably helped him picture his future that much more easily.

He may have only been drafted this week, but the Red Sox have a years-long relationship with Teel, forged at tournaments in the 104-degree heat of Alabama and showcases at Fenway Park, and that connection helped the Red Sox nab arguably the best catcher in the draft — a player who, if all goes right, could be their big-league backstop for years to come.

Red Sox northeast area scout Ray Fagnant first met Teel in his junior year of high school in 2018 when Teel played in the Area Code Underclass Games in Los Angeles.

“He was a boy, but the instant we saw him throw the first ball in infield practice, (Yankees northeast area scout) Matt Hyde, who helps put the team together, we looked at each other and said this kid has an arm,” Fagnant recalled. “First round BP in the cage, his bat was really quick and you could tell he was already very well trained.”

In a bit of irony, Fagnant later found out why that boy seemed so polished already at a young age: Fagnant had played against Teel’s father Garett in 1990 when both were catchers in the minor leagues. Fagnant was with the Red Sox and Teel, a 12th-round pick in the 1989 draft, was with the Dodgers.

Fagnant continued watching the younger Teel’s development at Mahwah High and in travel ball tournaments across the country. The next year, Teel was on Fagnant’s East Coast Pro Showcase team in Hoover, Ala. Teel caught most of the weekend in the triple-digit heat, showing up to the early optional sessions at 7 a.m. as the sun was rising. Fagnant wanted to give Teel a bit of a break on the last day while also letting him have a little fun so in one seven-inning game, Teel played a different position each inning. He also hit an inside-the-park home run that day.

Advertisement

“I think he made the play of the game at four different positions,” Fagnant said.

Later that summer, just before Teel entered his senior year at Mahwah High, Fagant and Hyde were hosting their annual Rivalry Game at Fenway. The showcase allowed scouts from every team to see some of the top northeast prospects play in a big-league park. Fagnant and Hyde split the players into teams — the Red Sox and Yankees — mostly based on where the players were from, so Teel spent most of the day on the Yankee side with Hyde. But after one inning, Fagnant decided to take advantage of the looser setting while also hoping to play a prank on his scouting counterpart. Fagnant, who’d gotten to know Teel well by that point, called out to Teel as he was jogging off the field and gave him the plan: The Red Sox team was headed to bat and he told Teel to slip on a Red Sox jersey and head to the plate. Teel did just that, crushing the first pitch he saw to the warning track in right-center.

“He’s running back in and Hyde looks up and realizes what I did and quipped, ‘I was wondering who that was, because your side hadn’t hit a ball out of the infield all day,’” Fagnant said.

It was that foundation that laid the groundwork for the Red Sox with Teel.

Teel’s athletic family surely helped refine his natural ability, but his enthusiasm and leadership are attributes that can’t be taught. Teel’s mother played softball in college at William and Mary while his father, who played five seasons in the minors, later opened Teels Baseball & Softball Training Center in nearby Hawthorne, N.J. Kyle, along with his younger brother Aidan, grew up surrounded by the game.

Teel mostly played shortstop his freshman and sophomore years at Mahwah High for head baseball coach Jeff Remo, but he was such a good athlete he’d sometimes come in as a closer, throwing 90-mph fastballs past opponents. Teel transitioned to catching his junior year and caught almost every game. Remo also coached football at Mahwah where Teel was the starting quarterback, showing off his tremendous arm strength and agility. But it was the baseball field where Remo knew Teel was special.

Advertisement

“I tell everyone, I’ve been coaching over 30 years, I’ve coached many Division I players, but when I saw this kid the first day, I said this kid will play in the big leagues one day, it stood out that much,” Remo said.

Teel, albeit unintentionally, left a memento for Remo before he graduated when he dented the brand-new $30,000 scoreboard the school had purchased for the team during batting practice, just one day after it had just been installed.

“He was usually my leadoff hitter so we took batting practice and he’d bat first,” Remo said. “He laid down two bunts and then the first pitch he swings at, he hits a laser off the brand new scoreboard. It made a dent, didn’t break it. But I always think of Kyle Teel when I see it now.”

The pandemic wiped out Teel’s senior season at Mahwah, but as the 2020 New Jersey Gatorade Player of the Year and Perfect Game’s No. 1 overall player in the state, Teel could have easily been drafted and several teams were interested, including Fagnant and the Red Sox. Yet Teel’s father encouraged him to head to college to continue his development. Teel honored his commitment to the University of Virginia, sending a letter to every MLB team making them aware of his intentions so they wouldn’t waste effort in trying to scout him.

“I give his father a lot of credit guiding him and in hindsight, he made all the right decisions,” Remo said.

For as impressive as Teel was in high school, he took the next step at Virginia and the Red Sox kept close contact. Teel was out of Fagnant’s northeast scouting region by that point, but Red Sox Mid-Atlantic scout Wallace Rios took over.

“We had plenty of history with this kid coming out of high school in New Jersey,” Rios said. “One of the first things that stood out was his leadership behind the plate, in the dugout, on the field, you can’t really teach a kid to do that. To be a leader for the pitching staff at UVA, being like an extra coach he’ll go out there and ID something the pitcher is doing or not doing and try to help them out to help his team win, those leadership traits stand out as you watch him play.”

Advertisement

His freshman season, Teel led the team in hitting with a .335 average and earned freshman All-America honors from Baseball America while splitting time among catcher, right field and designated hitter. The Cavaliers already had a veteran catcher so Teel played 15 games behind the plate while working diligently in practices on refining his game.

His sophomore year, Teel took over the catching role full-time, starting all 58 games while hitting .276. He played on Team USA after his freshman season, and after his sophomore year, he won the starting catching job for the national collegiate team.

“I think that was a big moment in his career because he’s catching the best guys in the country and proving he’s their starting catcher,” said Virginia coach Brian O’Connor.

In order to take the next step at catcher, O’Connor had also encouraged Teel to take his nutrition more seriously. Teel’s average and power had dipped his sophomore season as he took on a full slate of games. After the summer with Team USA, Teel came back in the fall to Virginia having added 10 to 15 pounds of muscle.

“The self-confidence as the Team USA catcher, experiencing that after catching for us, coupled with being more physical, jumped up his game and the consistency of his game,” O’Connor said.

This past season, as Rios and the Red Sox homed in on Teel, the catcher hit .407 and his average never dipped below .400 all year. Meanwhile, he started at catcher every game for the second straight season, including both ends of doubleheaders on multiple occasions. Teel emerged as one of the best catchers in the country, winning the Buster Posey National Collegiate Catcher of the Year award in addition to being named the Top NCAA Male Baseball Catcher as part of the Johnny Bench Awards and a slew of First Team All-America awards.

“His love to play the game and energy he plays with is unlike any player I’ve had in 30 years and I tell you I am not overstating this, it is at a different level,” O’Connor said.

Advertisement

Major league comparisons are always too lofty for amateur players, but Teel isn’t drawing comparisons to Buster Posey just because he recently won Posey’s namesake award. Teel is a converted shortstop, like Posey, and his agility behind the plate is among his biggest attributes.

“He’s not your traditional catcher — and what I mean is he’s incredibly athletic back there and that’s the way Buster was,” O’Connor said. “Buster, sometimes rather than blocking balls, would pick them like a shortstop. Well, Kyle blocks balls, but there are times he backhands them like a shortstop and you’re like, ‘Holy s–t, who does that?’ It’s just because of his hands and athleticism.”

All of that adds up to why the Red Sox are so excited to have drafted Teel — who they tracked for years from near and far — with the first-round pick on Sunday.

“It’s really been an almost ideal process being able to see him grow throughout the different stages of his development to where he’s at today being in an optimal spot to begin his career,” Red Sox vice president of scouting Mike Rikard said.

Teel is far from a finished product, but once he signs — which he’s expected to do — he’ll have a wealth of experience from which to learn starting with minor-league catching coordinator Tyson Blaser. If all goes well, in future years he’ll have Portland manager Chad Epperson and Triple-A hitting coach Rich Gedman, both former catchers, and later down the line Jason Varitek in Boston.

“He has a lot of untapped potential, and that’s hard to say because he had an unbelievable year this year,” Rios said. “But he’s developed into a really good catcher, his leadership skills and the way he plays is going to elevate his potential overall so we’re very excited to get this kid and see how everything unfolds. But it’s going to be fun to see his development.”

(Top photo of Teel: Mike Caudill / Associated Press)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57k29vampjbXxzfJFsZmlvX2Z%2BcLfYpZxmrJWauW6%2BxJ1krKeoYrCiwMKhnKtln5t6tbTEZp2urKWnsnA%3D