NEW YORK — J.C. Escarra repeated it back to himself, standing in the Yankees’ clubhouse on Sunday night.
“My first MLB home run ball,” he said, cradling the baseball in a glass case before reaching up and placing it softly on the top shelf of his locker.
Maybe it was Escarra’s way of pinching himself, making sure the ball he was holding was real and that the 415-foot moonshot he crushed to the bleachers in right-center an hour or so earlier wasn’t a figment of his imagination.
After all, Escarra had been dreaming about his first big-league home run — while wearing pinstripes — for as long as he can remember.
“If you were to [tell] me two years ago that I’ll be here doing this,” Escarra said, “I’ll tell you that you’re lying. It’s stuff that you dream about, stuff that you think about, goals that you have, but to actually do it, for it to be reality, it’s crazy.”
Everybody has to wait for their big-league firsts. Unless you’re Bryce Harper or Paul Skenes, even the highest-ranked prospects and first-round draft picks spend years in the minor leagues. Baseball isn’t like the NFL or NBA in that way. But Escarra has been inching closer to these milestone moments over the course of nearly a decade. With the adversity he’s endured along his journey — and the steps back or sideways he’s been forced to take — it’s an understatement to say the odds were stacked against him.
Escarra, who was drafted out of Florida International University in 2017, was dumped by the Orioles after five years in their system. He bounced around between indy ball teams from there, playing internationally in the winters. In the spring of 2023, he was one more “no” away from hanging it up for good.
That’s when the son of two Cuban immigrants got the break he desperately needed. The Gastonia Honey Hunters gave him a bump in pay to make sure he could keep supporting his family and keep his MLB dreams alive. He was working a slew of jobs on the side at the time, including driving for Uber and working as a substitute teacher.
One year after that, Escarra was picked up by the Yankees, the team his dad rooted for when he settled in Yonkers after the move to America.
Another year later, he was earning an Opening Day roster spot with the Yankees, a backup catcher with an infectious personality, an elite defensive skillset and some serious pop from the left side of the plate.
“This is my team,” he said Sunday night with a grin. “This is my family’s team. It’s a dream come true, and I’m doing everything as a Yankee. So can’t get better than this.”
The reactions in the Yankees’ dugout when Escarra turned on the hanging slider from Blue Jays reliever Chad Green tell you everything you need to know about how the catcher’s teammates and coaches feel about him.
What they said after the game shined a light on why the backup catcher is much more than a feel-good story.
Manager Aaron Boone praised the backstop for his RBI single in the sixth inning, a tough left-on-left matchup with Toronto reliever Brendon Little. The no-doubt homer in the eighth was a “flash of the power” from Escarra, Boone said. He then singled out Escarra’s “really good” defense behind the dish.
Was that something he expected to see at this level?
“Yeah, as much as we like the bat, he’s here because he can catch,” Boone said. “He really earned that reputation in our organization last year with not only when you dig on the numbers and how he throws really well, outstanding with the framing stuff and seems to have some presence and some chops and some feel for calling the game back there. So I’ve been really pleased with him.”
Just ask the pitchers.
“He is really fun to work with,” Sunday night’s starter Clarke Schmidt said. “Does a really good job. Sometimes I think everything’s a strike when I’m throwing out there just because he’s so good at making it look like a strike. Then his game calling is really good. He has really good feel for the game, and he’s just very competitive and he brings your spirit up. He’s always smiling and stuff like that. Obviously big homer for him. Really, really crazy story. So just a guy you always root for, and just fun to go to battle with him.”
Reliever Luke Weaver, who got the final three outs on Sunday night, agreed.
“He’s got a really good presence behind the plate,” Weaver said. “He’s a natural at [pitch framing], he’s worked really hard at it and he’s right where he needs to be.”
That’s in line with the scouting reports on Escarra over his first year with the Yankees in their minor-league system. Yankees defensive coordinator Aaron Gershenfeld told NJ Advance Media earlier this year that Escarra finished the 2024 season as the No. 1 receiver in all of Triple-A and a 98th percentile receiver across minor league baseball, according to the Yankees’ internal defensive metrics.
So, Escarra doesn’t need to hit .400 — like Aaron Judge has been doing — to preserve a role on this team. Ben Rice came up as a catcher as well, but other than two innings in two blowouts dating back to last summer (including the ninth inning of Game 1 on Sunday), he hasn’t been used behind the plate at this level. Meanwhile, the Yankees have had no problem slotting Escarra into the lineup, whether it’s ace Max Fried on the mound in Detroit (when the lefty struck out 11 across scoreless innings) or he’s starting back-to-back games during the Rays series at Steinbrenner Field last week.
Rice’s path to playing time when Giancarlo Stanton returns from injury is still unclear. If he’s still hitting at this level once Stanton is healthy, the Yankees will need to find ways to get him in the lineup, whether it’s platooning with Stanton or Paul Goldschmidt. It certainly doesn’t seem like he’s a threat to leapfrog Escarra on the depth chart as Austin Wells’ backup.
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Max Goodman may be reached at [email protected].
