Kyle Farmer to get catching reps during Braves rehab assignment, per MLB.com

What happened

Kyle Farmer is heading out on a minor league rehab assignment, and the Atlanta Braves plan to put him behind the plate while he's there. Mark Bowman of MLB.com reports that the injured utilityman is expected to receive catching reps as part of that stint — a wrinkle that makes an otherwise routine rehab assignment worth paying attention to.

Farmer has been on the injured list with a forearm injury since mid-May. The rehab assignment represents his path back to the active roster, and per Bowman's report, the Braves intend to use the time to expand what he can offer the club positionally.

Why it matters

The catching angle is not as far-fetched as it might sound for a player who has spent the bulk of his big league career moving between shortstop, second base, and third base. Per MLB.com's report, Farmer was originally drafted as a catcher and logged extensive innings at the position across his minor league career. The position is, in a real sense, where he started.

What makes the experiment notable is how long it has been since he actually caught in a game at any level. Farmer has played just 90 big league innings behind the plate, and nearly all of that work came with the Cincinnati Reds in 2019. Per the report, he has not caught a single inning — in the majors or in the minors — since that time. That is a meaningful gap. Catching is a position that tends to punish rustiness in ways that a spot start at second base does not: the footwork, the framing mechanics, the choreography with a pitching staff — these are skills that erode with disuse.

That the Braves are willing to invest rehab time in reactivating those skills suggests they see genuine utility value in the possibility, even if the outcome remains uncertain. A position player who can credibly catch, even in an emergency capacity, carries a different kind of roster flexibility than one who cannot. On a 26-man active roster, that distinction can matter in the late innings of a close game when a catcher goes down and the manager is staring at his bench.

The numbers

Farmer's 2026 season line tells a story of limited opportunity rather than performance. Per MLB.com's report, he appeared in only 10 games and accumulated just 15 plate appearances before the forearm injury ended his spring. Atlanta signed him as a free agent in March, carried him on the active roster through mid-May, and — per Bowman's report — scarcely used him during that stretch. Ninety big league innings at catcher, spread almost entirely across a single season seven years ago, is the catching résumé the Braves are now asking him to build upon.

Where the club stands

Atlanta is 94-68 (.580), sitting first in the NL East and leading the division. They carry a streak of L1 into their current road trip — a minor blemish on a record that puts them comfortably atop the standings as the calendar turns toward late June.

The Braves are in San Diego for a series at Petco Park, with JR Ritchie lined up against Wandy Peralta on Tuesday, June 23, and Martín Pérez scheduled to face JP Sears on Wednesday, June 24. The club then travels to San Francisco for a Friday, June 26 matchup at Oracle Park, where Reynaldo López is the probable starter against Trevor McDonald.

A first-place club in late June is not typically the environment where a catching experiment on a rehab assignment draws much attention. But the Braves' roster construction — and specifically what Farmer's role within it might look like — gives the development some operational texture worth tracking.

Is Farmer expected to catch in the majors?

That is genuinely unclear, and the report does not say. What Bowman's piece establishes is that the Braves plan to give Farmer catching reps during the rehab stint. Whether that translates into any catching appearances at the big league level, and under what circumstances, is not addressed in the report. The experiment could be a contingency measure, a genuine positional expansion, or simply a way to keep Farmer sharp and versatile while he works his way back from the forearm injury. The club has not characterized it publicly beyond what MLB.com reported.

It is also worth noting the context of Farmer's usage before the injury. Per the report, he appeared in only 10 games and totaled 15 plate appearances across nearly eight weeks on the active roster. That is a light workload by any measure, and it raises a reasonable question about what role the Braves envision for him when he returns — catching reps or otherwise.

What we don't know yet

The report does not specify a timeline for Farmer's return from the rehab assignment. Under general league mechanics, position players on a rehab assignment have up to 20 days before the club must make a decision — activate the player or make another roster move. Where Farmer stands in that window, and how the forearm injury is progressing, has not been reported.

It also remains to be seen how the catching reps go. A substantial minor league foundation behind the plate is one thing, but that work predates his big league career in meaningful ways, and he has not caught at any level since 2019. The rehab assignment will tell the Braves something they apparently want to know. What they learn will shape how they carry their roster the rest of the way.

What to watch

The catching experiment itself is the thing to monitor. If Farmer logs innings behind the plate during the rehab stint without incident, the Braves will have added a layer of positional flexibility to a roster currently running first in the NL East. If the experiment stalls — whether due to the forearm, the rust, or simply a reassessment of the plan — he returns as the utilityman he has been throughout his career.

Either way, Farmer's return from the IL will require a corresponding roster move, and how Atlanta handles that transaction will offer some signal about how seriously they are weighing the catching dimension. A club in first place in late June does not typically spend rehab time on positional experiments without a reason. Per Bowman's report, they have one. What it produces is still to be determined.