LAKEWOOD, N.J. — The Yankees have watched their High-A roster thin out all month. Three of the best position players on the Hudson Valley Renegades vanished within nine days, all infielders.
Kaeden Kent went to the Giants in an Aug. 3 trade. Roderick Arias moved up to Double-A Somerset the next day, and Core Jackson followed on Aug. 11. What was left behind looked, at a glance, like a lineup stripped for parts.
Only two Renegades position players ranked in the club’s top 30 by MLB Pipeline remained, and one of them, Wilson Rodriguez, is done for the year with a thumb injury. For a farm system that prides itself on depth, the shelves in Wappingers Falls had gone bare.
Yet the player the Yankees are most curious about right now is not on any top 30 list. He is a converted catcher barely a year into the position, and his own manager keeps reaching for a familiar name to describe him.
Eric Genther is that player, and the comparison his manager keeps returning to is Ben Rice. The left-handed hitter switched from the outfield to behind the plate this season, and the bat has traveled with him. Renegades manager Aaron Bossi sees the same barrel-to-ball skill and the same knack for lifting the ball that carried Rice from an Ivy League afterthought to the middle of the Yankees’ order.
That is a large name to hang on a 24-year-old in High-A. It is also the clearest signal yet of how the Yankees view a player they signed undrafted, then asked to learn the hardest position on the field.
A converted catcher climbing Yankees’ ladder
Eric Genther signed with the Yankees out of the University of Rhode Island in July 2025, an outfielder by trade who had caught only two games in college, both as a freshman in 2022. The organization saw the bat first and pitched him on a move behind the plate during offseason camp.
He accepted. This season he has caught in roughly half of his games while holding a productive spot in the lineup. Through 104 games at High-A, Genther is batting .267 with 12 home runs, 57 RBIs and an .830 OPS, drawing 57 walks against 82 strikeouts. He hit .358 in July, and his on-base skills have been the throughline all year.
The defense is a work in progress, and the Yankees do not hide it. Opponents have run aggressively on his arm as he learns the position. Bossi and his staff point to steady, visible gains in Genther’s footwork, release and receiving, the unglamorous parts of catching that arrive last.
Why Bossi keeps invoking Ben Rice
The comparison did not come lightly. Asked to assess Genther’s bat, Bossi framed the answer around the trait scouts prize most: the ability to square the ball and drive it in the air. That skill defines Rice, and Bossi hears the echo.
“When he’s hitting, it’s consistent bat to ball and his ability to impact it hard consistently,” Bossi said. “I look at Eric, I see a lot of Ben Rice. He’s a guy who constantly gets his barrel to the ball. He hits for a high slug because he’s able to consistently elevate the ball.”
Bossi was blunt about the developmental bet the Yankees are making. He framed the catching switch as a way to raise the ceiling on an already advanced hitter, and he did not hedge on where he thinks it leads.
“My messaging to Eric is he’s gonna be a big-league catcher,” Bossi said.
Genther, for his part, has embraced the reinvention rather than resisted it. He described the move as an opportunity handed to him by an organization known for turning catchers into big leaguers.
“It felt like a no-brainer for me,” Genther said. “It’s given me a lot of opportunities and this is the place to do it if you’re going to try to learn a new position. The Yankees do a really good job of developing catchers here.”
Twist the Ben Rice label hides: They took opposite paths
Here is the wrinkle that makes the comparison more interesting than a label. Rice and Genther are traveling in opposite directions. Rice was drafted as a catcher out of Dartmouth in 2021 and gradually moved off the position, sliding toward first base as Austin Wells emerged and his catch-and-throw skills lagged. Genther is doing the reverse, moving onto the position from the outfield.
So the shared thread is entirely the bat, not the defensive journey. When Bossi says he sees Rice in Genther, he means hit tool and slug, not glovework. It is a precise comparison, and a revealing one, because it tells you what the Yankees value and what they believe they can teach around it.
There is a statistical case underneath the praise. Genther’s 57 walks this year mark the same strike-zone control that made Rice a tough out from day one. A left-handed hitter who controls the zone, elevates the ball and can squat behind the plate is exactly the high-value, position-flexible bat the Yankees have leaned into. That is the Rice blueprint, drawn from the other end.
What Genther means for Yankees’ catching pipeline
The Yankees have built a reputation for stacking catching talent, and Genther is entering that pipeline from an unusual on-ramp, starting from scratch in a system already deep behind the plate. The offensive résumé travels regardless. He was a four-year starter at Rhode Island who hit .367 as a senior and ranks among the school’s career leaders in home runs, RBIs, doubles and walks. He punishes right-handed pitching, where most of his power has come, and those hitting traits are the kind the Yankees bet on.
With the position group at Hudson Valley suddenly bare, the spotlight on Genther has only sharpened. Jackson Lovich, promoted from the Florida State League in late July, has hit well since arriving, but Genther remains the two-way project the Yankees are watching most closely.
Where the Genther project stands now
For now, Genther keeps catching, keeps hitting and keeps closing the defensive gap the Yankees knew he would face. The bat is ahead of the glove, the same order in which Rice arrived. The organization is not promising a timeline. It is promising attention.
The Yankees signed a hitter, moved him to the toughest job on the diamond and let his manager say out loud what the numbers hint at. Whether Genther becomes another Ben Rice or simply borrows the blueprint, the club has made its interest clear, and the rest of the High-A season is his audition.
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