Yankees catcher Austin Wells has looked like a completely different hitter in the second half of the season post-All-Star Break. This is in a good way, of course. Wells, who had a miserable first half of the season, has posted an .814 OPS in his previous 43 games in the second half, reported Yankees beat writer for the New York Daily News Sports Gary Phillips in a tweet last night after the Yankees’ 6-3 win against the Angels in Anaheim.
Wells arguably had the biggest at-bat of the game, a two-run base hit to right field in the top of the 10th inning to give the Yankees a 3-1 lead at the time. The Yankees had the bases loaded with two outs in a 1-1 tie ballgame after Jones struck out and Luis Garcia Jr popped out. It was a much-needed boost for a Yankees team that saw another dominant Cam Schlittler performance, where he threw seven and eight innings of one-run ball with nine strikeouts, the lone run coming in the seventh inning when Vaughn Grissom hit a game-tying home run to center field.
Austin Wells Turning Things Around In The Second Half
Austin Wells, after an abysmal first half and an overall season marked by struggles, currently has a .190 batting average and a .597 OPS in 290 plate appearances across 105 games. The last 43 games have been a totally different story for Wells offensively.
In these last 43 games, Wells also has six home runs and 18 RBI’s dating back to July, which is after his four home runs and seven RBI’s from March through June, per StatMuse. Lots of chatter at this past MLB trade deadline centered on the Yankees potentially seeking an upgrade at catcher, with names such as Adley Rutschman and Liam Hicks thrown out there. The Yankees also have a right-handed hitting backup catcher in Ali Sanchez.
Wells Gets Credit For His Defense Quite Often
Wells, on the other hand, has always been a great defensive catcher. The pitching staff loves him and often credits him with much of their success this season. Wells ranks in the 86th percentile for blocks above average (6) and pitch framing (5) this season, according to Baseball Savant. Wells was originally drafted out of the University of Arizona as a hitting-first catcher who needed some defensive work. Still, this year he’s been primarily a defensive-first catcher until the second half of the 2026 season.
For the Yankees’ sake, they hope this will be a continuation of good things to come down the stretch offensively for the 27-year-old left-handed hitting catcher. Wells, in his two prior seasons, 2025 and 2024, was an above .700 OPS hitter, so dropping to a below .600 OPS in one year is unusually odd for him given what we’ve seen previously.
With the Yankees’ catching group not changing, at least for the next several weeks and down the stretch as they navigate the remainder of the 2026 season, they’ll continue to see whether Austin Wells can maintain this positive progression and become more of the version we saw in 2025 and in his rookie campaign in 2024. That would be a huge boost to the bottom half of the Yankees lineup, as we’ve seen so far in these last 43 games.
Yankees’ Catcher Austin Wells Second Half Surge At The Plate