How Yankees catcher Austin Wells went from platoon player to Rookie of the Year contender

At 84-62, the New York Yankees have a 1 1/2-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles in the AL East with only 16 games to play. Those two teams will play a three-game series at Yankee Stadium from Sept. 24-26, so the division race is far from over, but the Yankees are in good position at the moment. Take care of business and the division is theirs.

The Yankees are in first place because of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, first and foremost. Judge (217 OPS+) and Soto (179 OPS+) have been the two best hitters in baseball this season. When you start your lineup with those two, you're in great shape. It's also helped that young Luis Gil and (when healthy) Clarke Schmidt have stabilized the rotation.

Another reason the Yankees are in first place? Austin Wells. The rookie backstop has emerged as a bona fide middle of the order force while also playing strong defense. On Monday, he clubbed a go-ahead three-run home run against the Kansas City Royals and on Wednesday he provided a game-tying sacrifice fly in the tenth inning, both crucial plays in wins.

"I'm not impressed because I knew what he's capable of," the recently promoted Jasson Domínguez said about Wells following Monday's game (via NJ.com). "But obviously he's doing great. I mean, that homer today? It was insane."

For the season, Wells owns a .252/.341/.437 batting line with 13 home runs, far above the .235/.300/.383 MLB average for catchers. He's struck out in only 20.7% of his plate appearances, better than the 22.5% league average. Wells has put himself in the Rookie of the Year conversation. Here is the American League rookie WAR leaderboard (per FanGraphs):

1. Austin Wells, Yankees: 3.6 WAR
2. Colton Cowser, Orioles: 3.6 WAR
3. Wilyer Abreu, Red Sox: 3.0 WAR
4. Luis Gil, Yankees: 2.5 WAR
5. Cade Smith, Guardians: 2.4 WAR

Wells is outhitting Cowser, who owns a .243/.325/.438 slash line, and he's tied him in WAR despite having 145 fewer plate appearances. It wasn't until Jose Trevino suffered a quad strain on July 12 that Wells was given the opportunity to be the No. 1 catcher and he's run with it. Since Trevino's injury, Wells has started 37 of New York's 50 games.

"I think Austin is right at the top. Certainly worthy of it," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said about the Rookie of the Year race earlier this week. "He's been outstanding. He's been such a key cog in our lineup, in the middle of the order for the last few months. Really coming into his own as a hitter. And all the while doing it at such a critical position where I think he's handling himself so well behind the plate defensively. When you add what he brings to the table hitting fourth in our lineup, it's been a phenomenal rookie season for him."

Wells is not an out-of-nowhere success story. The 25-year-old was New York's first-round pick in 2020 and Baseball America ranked him as a top-100 prospect in both 2023 and 2024. He certainly has pedigree. Still, the learning curve at catcher is steep, and few rookie catchers step right into lineup and produce immediately. When they do, it's a massive player development win.

Here is what you need to know about Wells and his breakout season as he's become the rare under-the-radar Yankee.

His bat has come alive

Wells, a left-handed hitter, and Trevino, a righty, were in a strict platoon early in the season and Wells did not perform in that role. He hit .196/.338/.294 in April and .204/.292/.306 through the end of May. Even during that slow start, Wells put up impressive exit velocities and contact rates. His season began to turn around in early June when he started to pull the ball. Take a look:

Pulling the ball leads to great results in general and that goes double for left-handed hitters in Yankee Stadium. It is worth noting though that Wells has been very productive both at home (.262/.367/.433 with five homers) and on the road (.244/.318/.440 with eight homers). He's not simply a product of Yankee Stadium's short right field porch. It helps though, for sure.

Since the admittedly arbitrary date of June 6, Wells is slashing .284/.371/.515 with 12 home runs in 241 plate appearances. Set the minimum to 300 plate appearances and Wells ranks eighth among catchers in batting average, sixth in on-base percentage, and eighth in slugging percentage. He's been one of the 10 best hitting catchers in the game as a rookie. That's impressive.

He's been great protecting Soto and Judge

For much of the season, the Yankees had trouble finding a reliable leadoff hitter and a reliable cleanup hitter to surround Soto and Judge, who have hit 2-3 all year. Gleyber Torres finally got his season on track last month and is running a .407 on-base percentage since moving into the leadoff spot on Aug. 16. Soto and Judge finally have a consistent table-setter.

As for the cleanup spot, Wells made his first start there on July 20, and he has been excellent protecting Soto and Judge. Here are the numbers:

There is no one the Yankees could put behind Soto and Judge that will change the way teams pitch to them. No one will get Soto and Judge more fastballs or more pitches in the zone. For them, the cleanup spot "protects" Soto and Judge just by driving them in. Judge (.454) and Soto (.418) rank 1-2 in on-base percentage. Someone has to get them home. Wells is doing it.

He's handled Cole well

Throughout his career, Yankees ace Gerrit Cole has been a bit particular about his catchers. Chris Stewart was his personal catcher with the Pittsburgh Pirates. With the Houston Astros, it was Martín Maldonado. For much for his Yankees career, it's been Trevino, and when Trevino had season-ending wrist surgery last July, Ben Rortvedt took over and put the finishing touches on Cole's Cy Young season.

Cole missed the start of this season with nerve inflammation in his elbow. He made his season debut on June 19 and, sure enough, Trevino was behind the plate. Trevino caught four of Cole's first five starts before he suffered the quad injury that sent him to the injured list on July 12 (Cole started the game, coincidentally enough). At that point Wells, had to catch Cole, and it's gone very well.

Here are Cole's 2024 numbers with Trevino and Wells:

Things have gone so well that Wells, who did not catch Cole in a game for the first time until spring training, has caught three of Cole's five starts since Trevino came off the injured list, including the last two. Trevino is no longer Cole's personal catcher. Wells has been too good to take out of the lineup and he's also received the stamp of approval from the reigning Cy Young winner.

"The more that I catch him, the more confidence that I'll have," Wells said about catching Cole back in spring training (via MLB.com).  "Playing catcher, you like a challenge already. So getting to deal with the different guys we have on the staff, I don't think anyone's even close to the same. It's a lot of fun."

His defense has been better than expected

The book on Wells coming up through the minors said he could really hit, but his defense behind the plate left something to be desired. Entering 2023, Baseball America wrote his "profile is almost entirely driven by his bat" and "Wells is not likely to be an average defender." That was the consensus opinion: Wells could hit, but the defense was suspect.

Wells has worked hard to improve his defense -- "Wells draws raves for his work ethic and dedication to improvement," Baseball America wrote earlier this year -- and now he ranks as one of the game's better defensive catchers. Here are his numbers on his glovework this season (minimum 700 innings caught):

Excellent framing combined with above-average-ish blocking and throwing equals a very good catcher. Add in the bat, and Wells is one of the best all-around backstops in the game, which was not expected not too long ago. He looked like a bat-first player who would hit enough to make up for any defense deficiencies. Instead, Wells is performing well both at and behind the plate.

"It's a heavy responsibility to be a big league catcher, let alone be a big league catcher for the New York Yankees," Boone said earlier this week (via the New York Post). "He's handled all that really well and shown that ability from jump. Now we've really seen him start to become a force offensively too."

For the Yankees, Wells winning Rookie of the Year would be more than a player development success story. It would also net them a Prospect Promotion Incentive draft pick. Those are the extra draft picks given to teams that do not manipulate the service time of top-100 prospects. If the Yankees get the PPI pick, they'll happily take it. More importantly, they have a long-term building block at the game's most demanding position in Wells.

"He's doing a great job on both sides of the baseball," Trevino said earlier this week (via the New York Post). "I think that's very important, and I think it's underrated what he's doing right now, especially behind the plate. I think it's going very unnoticed, but it should be definitely worth the conversation of Rookie of the Year."