The Braves are planning to get injured utilityman Kyle Farmer some reps behind the plate on his upcoming minor league rehab assignment, reports Mark Bowman of MLB.com.
This won’t be Farmer’s first foray into catching — far from it, in fact. The 35-year-old infielder (36 in August) was drafted as a catcher and logged nearly 2800 innings at the position in the minors. However, Farmer has played just 90 big league innings at catcher. Nearly all of that work came with the Reds back in 2019. He hasn’t caught even one inning in the majors or in the minors since that time.
The experiment is notable on a number of levels. Atlanta signed Farmer as a free agent in March and carried him on the active roster through mid-May before a forearm injury sent him to the shelf. Despite spending nearly eight weeks on the roster, however, Farmer found himself getting into only 10 games and tallying only 15 plate appearances. The Braves scarcely used him at all, and in his absence, they’ve seen Ha-Seong Kim return from the injured list (and struggle immensely) while both Jorge Mateo and Mauricio Dubón increase their roles with the club.
At the same time, the Braves are facing another notable absence for catcher Sean Murphy and only recently got Drake Baldwin back from an oblique strain. President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos and his team have cycled through a litany of backup catchers this season: Murphy, Jonah Heim, Chadwick Tromp, Austin Wynns, Sandy León, Jair Camargo and now the newly acquired Joey Bart. Farmer probably isn’t going to see a regular workload behind the plate, but he’d give the Braves a potential third catcher to augment an injury-plagued catching tandem that’s rotated through a wide array of supporting characters.
The versatile Farmer had a nice run with the Reds and Twins from 2021-23 but has had a string of tough showings since. His bat took a step back in his final season with Minnesota in 2024, and a stop at the hitter-friendly Coors Field with the 2025 Rockies didn’t turn his fortunes. He’s posted just a .223/.285/.360 slash across his past 557 major league plate appearances.
That said, Farmer is capable of playing all around the infield and is seemingly open to at least adding some occasional or emergency catching work back into his repertoire. He’s a career .247/.306/.387 hitter overall but has roughed up lefties at a hearty .278/.340/.462 clip (116 wRC+) in his big league career.
