Cam Gallagher has elected to become a free agent, according to the veteran catcher’s official MLB.com profile page. The Guardians designated Gallagher for assignment earlier this week and he presumably cleared waivers, and then opted for free agency rather than accepting an outright assignment to Cleveland’s Triple-A team. Because Gallagher has been outrighted before in his career, he has the ability to reject any future outright assignments.
Gallagher seemed like a pretty clear non-tender candidate even before the Guardians picked up Christian Bethancourt off waivers from the Rays, which was the move that led to Gallagher’s DFA. Over 149 plate appearances for the Guardians last season, Gallagher hit only .126/.154/.168 — this translated to an ugly -17 wRC+, the lowest of any player in baseball in 2023 with at least 140 PA.
Seven different players saw action at catcher for the Guards last season, a mess of a situation sparked when offseason acquisition Mike Zunino struggled badly at the plate. This led to a revolving door of backstops until Zunino was designated for assignment in June, and Bo Naylor was called up from Triple-A for good. With Naylor’s bat coming alive near the end of the season, the former top prospect looks to have solidified his role as the Guardians’ starting catcher going forward, hopefully adding some pop to a position that has long been an offensive black hole for Cleveland.
Between Naylor, Bethancourt, and utilityman David Fry able to catch once in a while, there wasn’t any room for Gallagher to vie for work as a backup. Gallagher is projected to earn $1.3MM via the arbitration process in 2024, but it seems likely that he’ll have to settle for another minor league contract and compete for a backup job in Spring Training.
Turning 31 next month, Gallagher is a veteran of 227 MLB games over seven seasons with the Royals and Guardians, with a .211/.266/.307 slash line over 618 PA. While the offense hasn’t been there, Gallagher is a pretty well-regarded defender, and 2023 was at least a very strong year for Gallagher with the glove. As per Statcast’s numbers, Gallagher was solidly above average at framing and blocking, and he threw out nine of 52 baserunners for his first-ever positive (+1) grade in the Catcher Stealing Runs metric.
whatever happened to the catchers that could effectively hit?
I guess the days of Mike Piazza, Gary Carter and even Jason Kendall have been replaced by catchers like this one who thinks he deserves better than what he has
He’s a backup catcher. Nearly all backup catchers have the same profile.. good defense, poor offense.
It was his right to elect free agency and he did. He can still sign with Cleveland but is now free to explore options with other teams where he might have a better shot at a roster spot.. seems like a no-brainer.
@TheMan 3: JT Realmuto, Francisco Alvarez, Will Smith, Adley Rutschman, Jonah Heim, Sean Murphy, Travis d’Arnaud, William Contreras, Willson Contreras, Cal Raleigh, Salvador Perez, Alejandro Kirk, and Gabriel Moreno can’t hit, can they?
Don’t forget Bo Naylor
I’m pretty certain this is a huge mistake on his part because he’ll now get a LOWER contract than he would if he had gone to Columbus. This guy flat out hurt the Guardians with his bat.
Bethancourt looks like an absolute slugger compared to Gallagher.
What? He’s going to get a better contract as minor league free agent on a spring training invite. He wouldn’t have gotten his arbitration rate after being DFA’d
He’ll probably sign a minor league deal and make the same either way. Might as well test free agency and see what other options are out there.
Perhaps coaching is in his future?
I’m happy that he picked to be a free agent!
.126 hitter with no power? The guy has guts to elect free agency.
He has Marlins written all over him
It’s good to see the CLE FO is showing signs that maybe they’ve finally gotten over their addiction to all glove/no stick catchers. Like a recovering addict, it’s hard to pass up the Austin Hedges and Gallaghers of the world when they’re available for almost nothing, but when you have the kind of roster construction they do today, you cannot afford a black hole in the lineup. Especially when they have the offensively challenged Myles Straw killing rallies like there’s no tomorrow.