If the New York Yankees are truly all-in on 2026, they’ll need to upgrade their catcher position between now and the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
But ESPN.com’s Buster Olney believes Brian Cashman and Yankees brass will address that spot by potentially targeting Ryan Jeffers of the Minnesota Twins.
Jeffers just went on the injured list with a fractured hamate bone that reportedly will cost him 6-8 weeks and is a free agent at the end of this season. Still, he is slashing .295/.408/.541 with seven home runs — or four more homers than Yankees catchers Austin Wells and J.C. Escarra have combined for this season.
The Yankees are Interested in Twins Catcher Ryan Jeffers
Ryan McMahon has been maligned for his offensive struggles at third base, but their catcher spot has been a black hole offensively. Escarra and Wells have combined for just three homers, and the Yankees’ catchers rank 28th in MLB in wRC+ (58) and 27th in Offensive fWAR (minus-10.8) this year.
So all that led Olney to link the Yankees to Jeffers in a story for ESPN.com on Friday.
“Catcher Ryan Jeffers is a free agent after this season and was recently placed on the injured list with a broken hamate, but he could still draw ardent interest from teams like the New York Yankees for what he could provide in the last months of the season,” Olney wrote.
Jeffers, who will turn 29 on June 3, was having the best offensive season of his seven-season big-league career until he broke the bone in his wrist after an awkward swing on a foul ball Monday.
But Jeffers has quietly been one of the majors’ best hitting catchers over the past three seasons. He entered this season with 44 home runs and 109 extra-base hits from 2023-25 and is second on the Twins in runs scored (26) this season, trailing only perennial all-star Byron Buxton.
The Yankees May Not Want to Upset Their Catchers’ Elite Framing
The Yankees are still 30-21, with the second-best record in the American League, thanks to their starting pitching.
So there is a defensive component for the Yankees to consider before Cashman gets an itchy trigger finger. The Yankees’ catchers may be brutal offensively, but they have teamed up for the sixth-best Defensive fWAR (6.7).
Opponents have put up only 30 stolen bases against the Yankees this season, which is tied with the Philadelphia Phillies for sixth-fewest in MLB. The Yankees may only have only cut down eight potential base stealers, but the threat of Wells and Escarra cutting down runners has kept them from running wild in the year of the stolen base.
Cashman, of course, places a heavy emphasis on framing pitches, and Wells and Escarra are elite at it. Contrarily, Jeffers’ pitch framing started great early in his career but has regressed to about league average, according to Twins Daily — though the site noted Jeffers’ framing has improved in the ABS era.
The Yankees could also choose to put Ben Rice at catcher if they wanted to buoy their offensive production at catcher without parting with prospects for a rental catcher like Jeffers.
Rice, of course, leads the Yankees in OPS this season (1.030) and came through their system as a catcher. But he hasn’t caught at all this season, after spelling Wells and Escarra in 36 games last season.
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