Why Yankees' latest catching addition Mitch Garver won't be roster savior, but could help

The New York Yankees added a right-handed catcher with a career 111 wRC+ and a 31-homer season on his resume. All seems right in the world until you realize that the catcher in question is Mitch Garver, most recently of the Seattle Mariners.

Garver will be suiting up for Scranton for the time being and reportedly can opt out at the end of August if not called up. The 35-year-old has hit just .185/.292/.333 with a 30.1% strikeout rate since the start of the 2024 season.

A savior, he is not, but things might not be as bad as they seem. There are actually a few ways that Garver could help the team, even if we'd have loved the team to trade for a catcher (Tyler Stephenson?!) after balking at Adley Rutschman's price tag.

If the Yankees use Mitch Garver strategically, he might actually help boost the offense

The last time Garver had a productive season was 2023, when he hit .270/.370/.500 with 19 dingers for the Texas Rangers, who'd go on to win the World Series that year. Following the celebrations, Garver was off to Seattle, where he's lived for the better part of the last three seasons.

Since 2024, Seattle's T-Mobile Park has been the worst hitting environment for right-handed batters, which partially explains Garver's dramatic downturn after arriving in the Pacific Northwest. During his time with the Mariners, Garver has hit .213/.307/.365 on the road. It's better than his overall performance in Seattle, but not by much.

For what it's worth, his road performance has been better in 2026. This year, he's hit .232/.354/.377 away from T-Mobile Park. That's not earth-shattering, but we'd all take a .730 OPS out of the catcher spot at this point in time.

Now, if you take Garver's performance against lefties on the road since the start of 2024, a sample that includes 218 plate appearances, you'll find he's hitting .263/.353/.419. It might seem like we're grasping at straws here, but it can't be overstated how much of an effect playing in T-Mobile Park can have on a non-elite right-handed hitter's production.

If you combined that with Austin Wells' apparent resurgence, which admittedly is a very small sample, the Yankees might have something here in a Wells-Garver platoon. Since July 1, Wells has hit .240/.333/.460 over 58 plate appearances.

Garver isn't considered a great defender and struggles with pitch framing in particular. With that said, he's worked with Yankees director of catching, Tanner Swanson, during his time with the Minnesota Twins and has had at least some success in that regard in the past. The two reportedly have a great relationship, so it's possible that Swanson can get more out of him than others have recently.

This is definitely a silver-lining type of take. There's no guarantee that the Yankees even call up Garver, either. But there is a world where you can squint hard enough and see a platoon of Wells and Garver working out relatively well. Given where things stand, we'll take whatever we can get.

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