Eleven years is easy to say, but in modern baseball – regardless of the new long-term contracts – that a player lasts that many years in a single team is remarkable, and this is the case of Austin Barnes, who made history behind the plate with the Los Angeles Dodgers, winning two World Series, in 2020 and 2024 against the Rays and Yankees, respectively, although the latter without playing.
Barnes was always available to step in from the bench and did so superbly when required in defining moments, such as when Yasmani Grandal had bad lapses in 2017, which led him to play in the Fall Classic; the same case in 2020 backing up Will Smith, an edition in which he even connected a sacrifice bunt that drove in a run and hit a home run in Game 3 to help the Dodgers get a World Series after 32 years of drought.
Austin Barnes, a safe bet
Barnes remained Will Smith’s backup from then until now, when the reigning World Series champion decided to put him on designation for assignment (removed from the 40-man roster, but not immediately released pending a return, waivers or minor leagues), thus ending his story with the franchise where he was a backup to catchers A.J. Ellis, Carlos Ruiz, Russell Martin, Yasmani Grandal and Will Smith.
Barnes is 35 years old and of American nationality but of Mexican descent (representative for which he has played in the World Classic), came to the Dodgers in 2014 at the same time as Kike Hernandez, and always knew how to stay as a player to be taken into account, although he never surpassed the condition of substitute (so he never exceeded 262 appearances in a single season) with a batting average of .223/.322/.338 between 2015 and 2025.
The movement in favor of Dalton Rushing
The Dodgers made the decision to designate Barnes for assignment in favor of Dalton Rushing, a great positional prospect who “is hitting .308/.424/.514 with a 145 wRC+, five home runs and five doubles in 31 games with Triple-A affiliate Oklahoma City Comets. He also had a 146 wRC+ between Double-A Tulsa and Triple-A last season, and a 147 wRC+ at High-A Great Lakes in 2023,” according to TrueBlue.
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