Minor League Baseball

Miami Marlins Reunite With Veteran Catcher Rob Brantly on Minor League Deal

Rob Brantly, who made his MLB debut with the Marlins in 2012, is returning to Miami after appearing in 723 minor league games with 11 different franchises since then.
Sam Connon|
Phoenix, AZ, USA: Miami Marlins catcher Rob Brantly against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field.
Phoenix, AZ, USA: Miami Marlins catcher Rob Brantly against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

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Miami Marlins

The Miami Marlins have agreed to a minor league contract with catcher Rob Brantly, MLB.com's Christina De Nicola reported Tuesday night.

Brantly, who is 35 years old with with 15 seasons of professional baseball under his belt, has earned a non-roster invitation to the Marlins' big league spring training camp as part of the deal.

While Brantly has experience in the majors – he even made his MLB debut with the Marlins back in 2012 – most of his experience has come in the minors. He has logged 985 games played in the minors, compared to 138 in the majors.

Brantly was the Detroit Tigers' third round pick in the 2010 MLB Draft. He was traded to the Marlins along with two other prospects in exchange for Omar Infante and Aníbal Sánchez ahead of the 2012 deadline.

At just 23 years old, Brantly saw action in 31 MLB games, batting .290 with three home runs, eight RBI, an .832 OPS and a 0.5 WAR. Those numbers fell off when Miami gave him a bigger workload, though, as he went on to hit .211 with one home run, 18 RBI, a .528 OPS and a -1.7 WAR across 67 games in 2013.

Brantly got cut loose in 2014 and found his way to the Chicago White Sox via waivers. From there, he would bounce around to the Seattle Mariners, Cincinnati Reds, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Phillies, San Francisco Giants, New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays.

The Rays gave Brantly a shot in the majors for three games in 2024, but he spent the majority of the season with Triple-A Durham. He hit .250 with five home runs, 19 RBI, a .710 OPS across 52 games with the Bulls.

For his minor league career, Brantly has hit .271 with 77 home runs, 440 RBI and a .724 OPS.

The Marlins could very well use Brantly as an emergency backup catcher, just as the Rays did in 2024 and the Yankees did in 2021 and 2022. Miami did just trade catcher Jhonny Pereda to the Athletics last week, so they had an opening in the upper levels of their farm system.

Nick Fortes and Rule 5 draft pick Liam Hicks are expected to serve as the Marlins' catchers to open the regular season, though, not leaving much room for Brantly, barring injury. Top prospects Agustin Ramirez and Joe Mack are also presumably nearing their MLB debuts, so it may not take long for Brantly to get leapfrogged by them as well.

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Sam Connon
SAM CONNON

Sam Connon is a staff writer for “Minor League Baseball on SI’’ and other "On SI'' baseball sites. He previously covered UCLA Athletics for “UCLA on SI’’ and won awards from the College Media Association and Society of Professional Journalists. Connon also wrote for “New England Patriots on SI’’ and was on the Patriots and Boston Red Sox beats at Prime Time Sports Talk. Follow Sam on Twitter @SamConnon.

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