The Yankees agreed to a minor league deal with veteran catcher Josh Thole this week, as first reported by Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter link). The former Mets and Blue Jays backstop would make $600K upon cracking the big league roster. He’s the third experienced catcher the Yankees have brought in on a minor league deal this winter, joining fellow veterans Chris Iannetta and Erik Kratz in that regard. Kyle Higashioka, though, remains the favorite to back up Gary Sanchez in 2020.
Now 33 years old, Thole carved out a niche as something of a personal catcher for former NL Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey and his knuckleball both in New York and in Toronto. He’s never been a huge threat at the plate, however, hitting .242/.313/.306 through 1499 Major League plate appearances and .259/.349/.380 through 186 Triple-A games.
Thole split the 2019 season between the Angels and Dodgers organizations, where he logged a combined .243/.352/.327 slash in 267 minor league plate appearances. He briefly appeared in the Tigers’ system in 2018 and didn’t play at all in 2017. Thole’s last big league action came in 2016 when he appeared in 50 games with the Blue Jays.
I thought he retired with RA Dickey
Dickey’s personal catcher and “designated UCL.”
Houston cheated against R.A. too. They always knew when the knuckle ball was coming!
+1
Forgot he was still around
I’m glad to see he’s been picked up
The Yankees can’t do any better than Thole, Kratz, Iannetta, Higashioka for their backup catcher? You know Sanchez will be on the DL at least once, probably twice.
Yeah, they should’ve kept Romine.
@Eatdust666
Romine, Didi and Bets were the cost of acquiring Cole. With them being over the lux tax Romine’s contract was going to have a harsh lux tax attached to it. $4 mil from the Tigers would’ve been $6-$8 mil to the Yanks. Higi is making the minimum and already on the roster. I think he’ll be a decent back up.
Yes. And the Yankees never spend on the backup catcher.
I would have tripped Romine and traded the injury prone and defensively challenged Sanchez.
No way was Romine staying to remain a backup. He deserved the shot at starting and teams were willing to offer him that.
Higashioka is probably the worst of the group, yet they still love him for whatever reason.
Yes!
amazing he’s still around
Booya!
Things will have gone horribly wrong for the Yanks if this guy even sniffs a (non-Spring Training) MLB at-bat.
This guy is a real a-thole
…Pot calling thole kettle black…
Thole is a quality personality. He did a brief stint as color guy in the Blue Jays radio broadcast booth in 2018 and was well, well above any expectation.
I mean okay, but why?
By mid summer, the Yankees will reaquire Austin Romine for a low level minor leaguer.
The constant knocks on Sanchez’s defence are tired…it’s like those critics didn’t watch a game last season and hung on to the narrative from 2018 that he couldn’t catch? Same goes for Andujar’s defence…like everyone is supposed to be Scott Rolen at 3B or a Molina behind the dish in their rookie seasons??
No one expected Andujar to be Rolen-good. The problem is, anyone expecting him to be at least passable, was let down. He was really, really bad.
When you’re as young as he is, and people are already talking about moving to 1B, that’s not good.
Andujar was bad but in his defense (no pun intended) he wasn’t even supposed to be in the majors. He only came up because of an injury to Drury. From all I have heard about how hard he works, I’m confident he’ll improve to serviceable. Unless his shoulder keeps him from it.
Agreed. They’re both young, cost-controlled with high-ceiling bats and can certainly can keep improving on their defense. Selling-low makes zero sense.
Guys a bum….