When the other catcher on your team is Yadier Molina, you have to resign yourself to knowing you will be the backup catcher. That was Andrew Knizner’s fate as a catcher coming up in the Saint Louis Cardinals minor league system.

And when Molina retired after the 2022 season, he was still the backup catcher. Which is all he can hope to be this year, battling Sam Huff for the understudy behind Jonah Heim.

The twenty-nine-year-old isn’t being paid for his batting skills. He has a lifetime .216 average and a career 73 OPS+. He doesn’t have much power but still managed ten home runs last season in seventy games. But Knizner isn’t here to be a plausible replacement for the offense generated by the departed Mitch Garver.

Knizner is here for his defense. Just to be a good stopgap to give Jonah Heim a breather. He said he was excited to get to camp and start working with Rangers catching instructor Bobby Wilson, who has worked wonders improving Heim’s defense.

It seems to be a foregone conclusion that Knizner will break camp as the Rangers backup catcher. Sam Huff will be told, as always, that they love his game but want him to get regular at-bats, which he wouldn’t do as a backup. So, even though Huff has the better chance of suppling the Rangers lineup with the offense they lost with the departure of Garver, Huff will most likely head to Round Rock to be the backup to the backup. Unless he hits well enough to claim the DH role, then the Rangers could do the three-catcher thing they did last year with Heim, Garver, and Hedges.

So, one of the few competitions in spring is between Knizner and Huff to see who is the backup backstop. Let the games begin,. Which, they do tomorrow.