Austin Barnes Bio

[Randi]

Austin Barnes was drafted out of Arizona State by the Florida Marlins in the eighth round of the 2011 Major League Baseball draft. In two years in the minors, he split time between playing second base and catcher. 

In December of 2014, Barnes was traded to the Dodgers along with Kiké Hernández, Andrew Heaney, and Chris Hatcher in exchange for Dan Haren, Dee Gordon, Miguel Rojas, and cash. He was sent to AAA Oklahoma City Dodgers and made his debut on May 24, 2015, when Grandal went on the IL for a concussion. In his debut, he had one hit in three at-bats and started that game at catcher. He was sent back down to AAA when Grandal returned to the team and was named the starting catcher on the Pacific Coast League mid-season All-Star team. He was also named to the post-season All-Star team as well as Baseball America’s AAA All-Star team. 

In 2017, he made the Opening Day roster for the first time as a backup catcher. Barnes would work himself into a platoon role in 2017 and take over the starting spot from Grandal in the playoffs before returning to his platoon role in 2018. In 2019, Barnes was the Opening Day catcher with Grandal leaving for Milwaukee, but would struggle and lose some of his playing time to Will Smith. 

In 2020, Barnes put up his best numbers since 2017 slashing .244/.353/.314. Barnes really made his mark on the team come October when he handled the pitching staff extremely well and was even credited by Walker Buehler for helping him escape a crucial jam in the NLCS. He started eight games and hit .320 with an OPS of .833.