Like plenty of other members of the 2020 Red Sox roster, Christian Vazquez has seen his name in trade rumors.
"I read something, but like I said before, we don't control that," he said. "We control if we play hard, coming in here and helping this team."
The scuttlebutt has, however, left the catcher -- who signed a three-year, $13.55 million extension with a $7 million club option for 2022 prior to the 2018 season -- reaffirming his ultimate goal. Vazquez wants to remain a Red Sox for life.
"I think we don't control that," he said from Buffalo before the first of a three-game set against the Blue Jays. "We can control coming here and working hard every day. It's going to be sad if I left Boston because all my career was here. I've been here, with one organization. My goal is to retire here. That's my goal in my career, being part of one organization. Have one jersey on my chest for my career. But we don't control that. We're baseball players who come here every day to play and play hard and do our best to help the team win."
Because of his relatively reasonable contract and the production turned in the past few seasons, it would come as a surprise if Vazquez did draw interest prior to the Aug. 31 trade deadline.
The 30-year-old has slumped somewhat of late, sitting with a .258 batting average and .708 OPS after his hot start. But Vazquez has undoubtedly proven himself to be capable of being a No. 1 catcher for a contending team, as was the case in 2018.
"We talk. We talk," Vazquez said. "Nothing specific, but normal talking, normal, like, I don't know, nothing serious like, 'You think I'm going to get traded?' No. We don't talk about that. I think if it happens, it happens. We turn the page, we continue working hard, but we don't talk about specific."
