Dodgers exercise 2025 option on Austin Barnes
11/02/2024 04:35 PM
Longtime catcher will be back for an 11th season with Los Angeles
The second-longest tenured player on the Dodgers will be back next season, as Austin Barnes had his 2025 club option exercised by the team on Saturday, per multiple reports.
Robert Murray of Fansided was first to report the news, which was confirmed by both Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic and Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times.
Barnes will earn $3.5 million in 2025, the same salary that he made in both 2023 and 2024 as part of a two-year contract extension signed in July 2022 that delayed what would have been his first taste of free agency.
The Marlins drafted Barnes out of Arizona State in 2011, but the catcher was traded to the Dodgers at the winter meetings in 2014, prior to reaching the majors. He's one of only seven players to catch games in at least 10 seasons with the Dodgers, and once he gets into a game in 2025 he will join a quartet of Steve Yeager (14 years), Mike Scioscia (13), Otto Miller (13), and John Roseboro (11) of catchers with at least 11 years with the franchise.
Only Clayton Kershaw, who debuted in 2008, has been with the Dodgers longer than Barnes, who turns 35 years old on December 28.
Barnes hit .264/.331/.307 with a 86 wRC+ in his 54 games this season, with his best batting average since 2017. He had a career-best 12-game hitting streak from June to July.
Baseball Savant ranks Barnes in the 82nd percentile among major league catchers in blocking the ball, and he's in the 53rd percentile in framing pitches. But he's only in the sixth percentile in caught stealings above average, and threw out just four of 52 runners trying to steal this season (7.7 percent).
His 42 starts behind the plate in 2024 were his lowest in a full season dating back to 2017. Barnes broke two different bones in his left big toe in separate injuries in the final six weeks of the regular season, and missed the minimum 10 dayson each IL stint.
Barnes is one of four catchers on a Dodgers 40-man roster that currently only has 14 position players. Hunter Feduccia made his big league debut with the Dodgers in 2024 and Diego Cartaya had his first taste of Triple-A, along with starter Will Smith, who is signed through 2033.
Two more Dodgers option decisions will be made by Monday. Kershaw has a player option worth $10 million for 2025 and has already stated his intention to return, and the Dodgers hold a club option on shortstop Miguel Rojas worth $5 million, with a $1 million buyout. Kershaw this coming Wednesday will have surgeries on his left foot and left knee, while Rojas will have sports hernia surgery.
