Minnesota Twins: Ranking the Top 15 Free Agent Catchers Available

Minnesota Twins Top Free Agent Catchers: No. 15-9

• No. 15: Austin Romine (R)
• No. 14: Andrew Knapp (S)
• No. 13: Sandy Leon (S)
• No. 12: Robinson Chirinos (R)
• No. 11: Austin Hedges (R)
• No. 10: Jason Castro (L)
• No. 9: Kevin Plawecki (R)

The catcher pool this year is a remarkably thin one, but across the league, that’s been what’s happened to the catcher position. Unless you land one of the truly elite players (J.T. Realmuto), you’re left with a lot of average. In these cases though, this is below average.

Each and everyone of these catchers would fall behind Ryan Jeffers and be a legitimate backup rather than a platoon partner. Austin Romine, Andrew Knapp, and Sandy Leon offer nothing offensively, but their defense is sometimes okay. Robinson Chirinos was decent in a small sample size in 2020, but he hasn’t been a legitimate option since 2019.

Austin Hedges is a good defender, but he’s a defensive liability. Jason Castro is a decent backup catcher, but a reunion in 2022 wouldn’t benefit the team outside of the fact that his lefty bat would offset Jeffers’ right-handed bat. Kevin Plawecki put together a decent 88 games in 2020 and 2021, but it’s hard to believe that he would be able to come in and offer an upgrade.

Each of these catchers would make sense for the Twins, as they would be extremely cheap catching options to back up Ryan Jeffers. With that being said, if the team wants to compete next season, the team clearly needs a better catcher to pair with Jeffers for 2023.