Ryan Garcia
Austin Wells is having the time of his life playing for the Dominican Republic in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, as the Yankees’ starting catcher walked it off to send them to the semi-finals.
He’s had an excellent tournament, making a lot of contact and taking his walks, which is reminiscint of the player we saw during the 2024 season who finished top three in AL Rookie of the Year voting.
The quality of opponent that the Dominican Republic has faced hasn’t been great, but even in at-bats against big leaguers such as Eduardo Rodriguez (Venezuela), his patience has still looked excellent.
Couple that with a return to the toe-tap that helped him produce a 107 wRC+ in 2024, and you could be seeing a return to the best that Austin Wells brought to the table in the big leagues.
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Why Austin Wells’ Patience is the Key To An Explosive Yankees’ Offense
Through nine games in Spring Training and the World Baseball Classic, Austin Wells has drawn five walks with five strikeouts in 29 plate appearances.
His power looks excellent, joining in the HR barrage that the Dominican Republic has been on and extending one of the deepest lineups we have ever seen by taking his walks and driving balls out of the yard.
That 17.2% walk rate isn’t stable enough to assume that Wells is going to walk a ton in 2026, but we’re seeing what that version of the former first-round pick is capable of doing.
Austin Wells had a solid 107 wRC+ during the 2024 season while underperforming his expected numbers rather significantly, indicating that his process at the plate was better than the surface numbers indicated:
A driving force behind that xwOBA was his excellent BB/K ratio, having a walk rate above 11% while striking out at a rate slightly better than the league-average.
That ratio plummeted from 0.54 to 0.25 in 2025, and while he generated more damage contact, it ultimately wasn’t a large enough improvement to outweigh that sharp drop-off.
His balance of plate skills and power worked better for him in 2024 because he still found ways to hit the ball hard to right field for home runs, it wasn’t as if his slugging abilities were unbearable with that more patient approach.
The questions about the Yankees’ bottom-third of the order are more than fair; all three of their projected starters had an OPS+ below 100 last season, but Wells differs from them.
Unlike Jose Caballero, Anthony Volpe, or Ryan McMahon, he has shown the signs of being not just a solid hitter, but a pretty good one when things are rolling.
I think a quieter load for Wells could do wonders; instead of a big leg kick he’s going back to the toe-tap that he used with strong results in 2024.
He’s able to get himself into launch position much quicker, allowing him to see the ball deeper in its flight path to the plate.
So far he’s got a 23.7% Chase% in World Baseball Classic Play while swinging in-zone 65.4% of the time, he’s making really good swing decisions and is still able to pull flyballs out of the yard.
I’m confident that Austin Wells’ 2024 profile can result in a top-half of the lineup kind of hitter, and if he gets back to that approach, the Yankees could lead the league in runs scored again.
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