The Dodgers have released catcher Austin Barnes, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He’ll be free to sign a contract with any club once he clears release waivers, if he hasn’t already done so.
This was the most likely outcome when Barnes was designated for assignment last week as the Dodgers chose to promote Dalton Rushing to the majors. Barnes is making a $3.5MM salary this year. It was unlikely that another club would claim him off waivers and take that on as he’s hitting .214/.233/.286 this season. He has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of electing free agency. The Dodgers are skipping that formality and sending Barnes to the open market more directly.
As a free agent, he should garner more interest. The Dodgers remain on the hook for what’s left of his salary. Any other club could sign him and would only owe him the prorated version of the major league minimum salary for any time spent on the roster. That amount would be subtracted from what the Dodgers pay.
Barnes has never been a superstar but has been able to carve out a career of more than a decade as a solid big leaguer. The Dodgers sent him to the plate 1,757 times from 2015 to the present season. He hit 35 home runs in that time while drawing walks at a solid 11.2% clip and only striking out at a 22.3% pace. His .223/.322/.338 slash line translates to a wRC+ of 85. That indicates he has been 15% below league average at the plate overall. However, catchers usually come in about 10% below the league-wide par, so Barnes’ production has been pretty decent for a backup at that position.
Defensively, the marks have been strong. He has been credited with 33 Defensive Runs Saved in his career overall. Outlets like Baseball Prospectus and Statcast have graded him as a strong framer and blocker behind the plate. He also appeared to have a strong reputation in the clubhouse for his game-planning and work with pitchers in general, particularly Clayton Kershaw.
The Dodgers have clearly been fond of Barnes. He was set to reach free agency after the 2022 season but they signed him to an extension that August. That deal paid him $7MM over 2023 and 2024 with a $3.5MM club option for 2025. They triggered that option back in November.
But as mentioned, his production tailed off this year as Rushing’s ascent could no longer be ignored, which led to Barnes getting bumped off the roster. Some other club in need of catching depth is sure to be intrigued by Barnes, given his overall track record and low acquisition cost. It’s also possible that he and the Dodgers decide to reunite on a minor league deal, though he’ll have a chance to scour the market for other options.
If he gets a major league deal elsewhere, he will suit up for a team other than the Dodgers for the first time. He was drafted by the Marlins but was traded to the Dodgers as a minor leaguer in December of 2014 and has been in the Dodger organization until this week.
Photo courtesy of Matt Marton, Imagn Images
If he can’t find another Major League gig I’d suggest the Cubs as a Minor League replacement and 3rd C in case Amaya or Kelly get hurt. Rather have him than Carlos Perez.
Cubs already gave Moises B. chilling in the minors for that.
Ballesteros couldn’t catch a cold. Although he is a tad better than last year the bar was so low that there was nowhere to go but up. He is not a Major League C and may never be. He’s horrible.
If they get to that point there will be the handful of guys like Nido or Bethancourt like last year.
I would guess very short term it would be Ballesteros and if it’s a little longer it will be a pick a guy off the shelf, Barnes included with the others without a home, but available if needed.
No more Austin Barnes or Chris Taylor? Next your gonna tell me Kike Hernandez is gone.
I can’t see that happening. Kike can play several positions, has been more productive and becomes elite in October.
Agreed. Kike is a gamer. Shades of David Ortiz.
Or Muncy
Muncy walked it off last night. Figured I’d also point out that the Dodgers don’t have anyone on the roster or coming up who can cover his position. So all told, he’s going to hang around for a while longer, it seems.
Just a thought that came to mind Blue, I don’t have a scoop or anything. They’d need to acquire a replacement and there are some rumors (not substantiated) out there as to candidates. I hope he stays.
The Dodgers are inevitably connected to Arenado trade rumors, but he isn’t much of an upgrade offensively. Hey maybe they could trade Max Muncy to the A’s for Max Muncy!
Some rumors – Nightingale etc…, such as they are, suggest a McMahon interest
Yep, saw that. McMahon doesn’t look like much of an upgrade, either. Also, he’s currently playing way above his career numbers. This would be a good time for the Rockies to trade him, but not such a good time to be a buyer.
Doesn’t Muncy usually start slow anyway? He may not be his old self, but I would think his power stroke will return at some point.
A little bit, not radically so. The largest factor I suspect is that he just got glasses. So probably he’s still getting used to them. He fiddles with them between almost every pitch.
Hernandez is still a good player and probably has a couple more productive seasons left in the tank. Defense is solid and he’s slugging .450 right now.
It is a joke in the sense of “I don’t know you guys anymore.”. I would think you would know a joke seeing as your name is based off of one that was made in bad taste.
Kiké is safe, he is pitched an MLB leading 0,00 ERA this season.
Going to be weird seeing him in another uniform. Same for Chris Taylor.
Wish Barnes the best. Good clubhouse guy who can really help with young pitchers.
The origin story of “Sam” is actually quite funny. During Spring Training in 2016, some of the veterans sent Barnes, a rookie, on a taco run. When he got back, A.J. Ellis joked that he didn’t even know his name, so Utley said, “It’s Sam.” In reality, most of his teammates call him “Barnsey.”
Never heard this story before. Thanks for sharing it.
I’ve also heard the rookie taco run story another war. That someone said that Utley didn’t know Barnes’ name, and Chase said something like “of course I do, it’s Sam.”
Either way, pretty good story.
Maybe AA can convince him to come to Atl on a minor league deal.
I like Murphy but he wants to be the main guy, not a platoon guy and Baldwin deserves to play right now.
Boston needs a catcher. Murphy for Arias. Murphy becomes the everyday catcher the Sox are looking for and Arias becomes the SS of the future the Braves are looking for. Then Barnes becomes the back-up to Baldwin
I know I know, wake up from my dream LOL
but Arias and Perdomo could be a really good future middle infield for the Braves.
Narvaez is actually doing pretty well in Boston
Dodgers should bring him on as a coach at some level. Knows the organization, knows hiw they teach their pitchers. 10+ year vet, knows the game. If he’s willing, of course.
He actually only has 9 years of service time. Here’s hoping he catches on for another season.
He should be able to play for another year or two. You are right though he would probably do great.
If only Austin could go back to the swinging 60s. He’d fit in nicely with Yaz and Hawk Harrelson and their nehru jackets. Yeah baby
of all the intangibles required to be a successful big league catcher, working with the pitching staff is the most underrated, It is currently not expressed in WAR. For this ability alone I would love to have Barnes as my teams’ backup catcher.
@BLBLBL – Catchers are always the smartest, best-looking, most underpaid and underappreciated guys on the playing field…
CarverAndrews, former catcher, are you?
Kabong: Who are you – Carnac the Magnificient?
I just might have played the position a bit over the decades ; )
My father was a catcher on the Worcester, Massachusetts, sandlots in the ’30s. His mentor was Bill Bergen, an excellent receiver although widely considered the worst hitter in MLB history (OPS+ 21 in more than 3,000 PAs).
At family gatherings, Dad would squat while everyone else sat in chairs. I have photos of him doing that. Yes, catchers don’t get enough credit for their good looks. Yogi was a cutey if you really think about it.
Or maybe “dashing” is a better word to describe Yogi. Like Dana Andrews, right?
Kabong – You hit it on the head – it is all in the perspective. Sometimes one has to squint a bit more in order to see just how good-looking they are, or if that fails just ask their mom.
It’s especially difficult in Los Angeles considering how the Dodgers go through pitchers. Not counting position players Rojas and Keekay, they’ve already used 25 pitchers in 2025. I understand the move, but,as you mentioned, Barnes will be missed in ways that can’t be calculated. He was apparently a clubhouse leader as well.
Along with the ability to call games. But because there’s no stat for that, it’s difficult to start a conversation with today’s baseball fans about these skills. Even analytics-driven teams such as the Dodgers understand these intangibles, which is why Barnes kept his job for so long despite swinging a marginal bat.
Catchers often have to game-plan through language barriers, including communicating with pitchers through their interpreters. Mike Piazza once caught a rotation of Hideo Nomo, Ismael Valdéz, Chan Ho Park, Pedro Astacio, and Ramón Martinez. That’s five pitchers from four different foreign countries. A tough gig for a catcher, yet all we heard about was Piazza’s inability to throw out baserunners.
The biggest barrier to communicating with pitchers, El Kab, is not just that so many are not native English speakers. The issue is that, when someone takes the mound, it appears that all vestiges of intellect and perspective seem to vanish and it is like talking to a wall with many of them. I wish that I had recorded the many conversations over the years where I just walked away shaking my head.
Pitching mounds are a scientific phenomenom known as IQ sinkholes…not quite as bad as all of those red hats out there but similar in nature.
I can only imagine. There’s that old Bob Gibson story where Tim McCarver would head out to the mound to talk to him. Gibson would shoo him away and say, “The only thing you know about pitching is that it’s hard to hit.” Of course, most pitchers are NOT Bob Gibson.
It must be difficult game-planning with a pitcher who you know won’t listen once the game starts.
Certainly there are pitchers that earn their stripes. Roy Halladay; Verlander Scherzer types that not only were incredible students of the game, but they also knew themselves and were able to analyze the hitters on the fly such that they already saw what a good catcher was seeing as well. Plus, the data and film study today at the professional level forces them to be become more knowledgeable than back in my day.
But there are still tons of Nuke Lalooshes out there…
Meat!
Prorated amount of MLB minimum if he signs another MLB contract with another team this year. Is this in addition the the $3.5 million the dodgers are paying him?
It’s in the article:
Any other club could sign him and would only owe him the prorated version of the major league minimum salary for any time spent on the roster. That amount would be subtracted from what the Dodgers pay.
Good luck AB, wherever you land.
I think he’s going to be picked up by another team he’s got experience working with pitching staffs, and his bat might still have some life with more plate appearances. But, it’s strange not seeing Barnes and Taylor on the Dodgers, they’ve been staples of your team for a long time!
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This comment section is surprisingly civil, with nary a hot take to be had.
If he can’t find a gig I hope he finds his way back to the Dodgers in a coaching role. Two time champion, he’s a Dodger for life.