The Yankees have been firing on all cylinders as of late, winning nine of their last 11 contests including last night’s affair against the Minnesota Twins. Yes, Aaron Judge has been on fire and yes, the bullpen has been magnificent. What about the catchers, though?
The catching tandem of Austin Wells and Jose Trevino has exceeded expectations and is contributing in all facets of the game: hitting, game-calling, defense behind the plate, personality, leadership … you name it. Trevino entered the season as a former Platinum Glove winner and defensive mastermind with a lousy bat. Wells opened the year as a question mark behind the plate, but oozing talent and upside offensively.
It’s safe to say that both have comfortably exceeded expectations in the areas they needed to improve. Last year, Yankees catchers ranked 13th in fWAR with 2.3. This season, they are seventh and already have 1.5. Nobody is expecting Trevino to maintain this kind of offensive performance, but he deserves some props for it. Before Wednesday’s game, he was slashing a solid .293/.341/.453 with a .795 OPS in 82 plate appearances. Considering some of his career offensive outputs, that line definitely feels like the Yankees have Johnny Bench or Mike Piazza. If Trevino can keep his OPS over .700 or close to it for the remainder of the season, the Yankees would be ecstatic.
Now, let’s have a conversation about Wells. As a prospect, Wells was always seen as a bat-first player with good baseball IQ, but below-average defensive skills. Well, the kid has worked hard to change that reputation and earn more playing time. So far, Wells managed to improve his DRS (Defensive Runs Saved) from -2 in last year’s short cameo to 1 in 2024. Per FanGraphs, he already has 2.2 Framing Runs and that ranks fourth among catchers with at least 200 innings.
Baseball Prospectus has Wells fifth in Framing Runs with 2.6, and Trevino sixth with 2.5. When it comes to called strikes above average (CSAA), Wells is third and Trevino is fourth. Switch the conversation to catcher positioning and stealing strikes via framing, and Wells (and Trevino, but we already knew that) has excelled. This alone makes him not only playable behind the plate (one of the concerns about his profile when he was a prospect), but a net-positive.
