Austin Wells may end up steering the Yankees’ entire plan behind the plate this winter.
New York spent much of last season being tied to just about every catcher who looked even remotely available. That chatter came from a simple reality: the Yankees needed more offense in a lineup missing Aaron Judge, and the internal options weren’t exactly forcing the issue. Wells sat at the center of it all, because his first half was rough enough to make the club wonder whether it needed to look elsewhere.
The struggles were amplified by the lack of a dependable backup. J.C.
Escarra was sent down in June, and veteran Ali Sanchez was basically patching the hole rather than solving it. That left Wells as the biggest variable in the position battle, and his uneven 2026 season is what will shape New York’s offseason thinking.
Before the All-Star break, Wells carried a .504 OPS. Then everything changed.
Over the final two months, he hit .229/.343/.441 with seven home runs, then carried that momentum into October by going 5-for-15 with four RBI. One of the playoff moments that stuck was him trying to turn a double into a triple in the eighth inning of Game 1 of the ALDS.
Easy to overlook in that chaos: the hit also snapped up a no-hitter on a night when Drew Rasmussen was almost impossible to solve.
The season, though, was never just about the bat. Wells hit the injured list in early June with what were described as cervical headaches.
He had already taken multiple foul tips to the mask early in the year, though he cleared concussion tests at the time. The headaches lingered long enough to send him to the IL, and after a two-week absence he came back looking more comfortable.
“ I think you look at the sample of two months there and say, ‘That wasn’t me. That wasn’t who I am,'” Wells told Brendan Kuty of The Athletic.
Kuty traced the concern back to two foul tips in particular: one on April 23 against the Red Sox, and another on May 9 in Milwaukee. Wells was hitting .175 through 20 games before that Boston matchup.
At the same time, two of his four home runs before the IL stint came in that two-week stretch between those foul tips. It’s the kind of small-sample puzzle that makes this tricky to pin down with certainty.
What’s easier to sort through is his work behind the plate. As Kuty noted, Wells was strong defensively throughout.
He posted 3 Fielding Run Value before the IL stint across 401 innings, and he ranked fifth in Statcast’s Framing metric. After returning, he was even better: 7 Fielding Run Value over the rest of the season in 559 innings, while again finishing fifth in Framing.
Wells also made a change after the injury scare, moving to a hockey-style catcher’s mask. He told Kuty he was “ definitely going to be more careful and paying closer attention ” to his health. He finished the year without another obvious issue, though catching never really gives anyone a clean bill of safety.
That’s where the Yankees’ offseason gets interesting. If the club believes the second-half version of Wells is the real one, it can shop in the bargain bin for a backup.
Someone glove-first like Austin Hedges, if Cleveland ever let him get away, or a familiar name like Kyle Higashioka would fit that route. New York may not even need to leave the organization, since Escarra and Sanchez have both shown they can handle the glove in brief major league looks.
That would make the offense more tolerable if Wells is producing like an above-average bat.
But if there’s still hesitation, the Yankees could go much bigger. Ryan Jeffers and Tyler Stephenson sit at the top of the free-agent market, and New York had some level of interest in trading for both earlier this season.
Carson Kelly belongs in that group too. If the Yankees decide they want to make a major move instead of a depth play, there are trade options as well, including Hunter Goodman and Shea Langeliers.
The range is wide. Wells is the piece that will tell them which direction to choose.
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