For the second time this week, the Yankees have lost a significant member of their coaching staff. Tanner Swanson, the organization’s director of catching since 2020, has been hired by the Seattle Mariners to join new manager Jason Kanzler as their bench coach according to the New York Post’s Joel Sherman. This comes on the heels of Triple-A manager Shelley Duncan defecting over to the Red Sox on Wednesday to join their staff, and now despite not making any firings of their own on the coaching staff the Yankees will
have some holes to fill.
Swanson was revolutionary in the organization for developing the team’s ability to frame pitches. Austin Wells has become the model for his work, becoming one of the best pitch framers in the game, and his development lined up directly with Swanson’s arrival in New York. The Yankees have been providing catchers to several teams over the years though, as they traded from their surplus of catchers sending Carlos Narváez over to Boston for Elmer Rodriguez, flipping Jose Trevino to Cincinnati for Fernando Cruz, and including Kyle Higashioka in the package to San Diego that netted Juan Soto.
The loss of Swanson is a big one for the Yankees to swallow, but they’ve hopefully learned enough from his time here to continue the catching pipeline that has netted them so much value. For Swanson, the chance to coach in the major leagues is an opportunity that he couldn’t pass up on, and he’ll now get to work with a premier catcher in Cal Raleigh coming off what was a disappointing follow-up to his MVP runner-up 2025.
