LOS ANGELES -- The Dodgers might have the deepest group of catching prospects in baseball, but the shallowest depth chart at the position on the 40-man roster.
Austin Barnes, Rocky Gale and James Farmer are the incumbents. Yasmani Grandal is a free agent looking for multi-year riches and the Dodgers don't need to make that kind of commitment with Will Smith, Keibert Ruiz, Connor Wong and Diego Cartaya comprising the pipeline of backstops making their way through the team's system.
But none has the experience to be a Major League starter by Opening Day. So, the Dodgers need a veteran one-year bridge, and it's likely to come from a group of usual suspects that was reduced by one on Monday when Kurt Suzuki signed a two-year, $10 million deal with the Nationals.
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That contract sets a market price for 32-year-old Martin Maldonado, who checks off the pitch-framer box that Dodgers management values so highly. In 2018, Grandal was the best at the skill according to Baseball Prospectus, with Maldonado ranked 18th in the game. For what it's worth, Barnes ranked 15th. J.T. Realmuto, the Miami catcher reportedly on the trade block, ranked 54th. Suzuki was 105th.
The list of free-agent catchers includes Wilson Ramos, Jonathan Lucroy, Robinson Chirinos, Nick Hundley, Brian McCann, Matt Wieters and A.J. Ellis.
Despite his defensive lapses, Grandal is likely to get the multi-year deal he seeks because he combines 24-homer power with the pitch framing.
Barnes, after winning the starting role late in the 2017 season, then losing it back to Grandal in Spring Training of 2018, went on to have a dreadful season offensively, then became the starter again in the postseason when Grandal had a defensive collapse.

Barnes had an .895 OPS in 2017, but only .619 in '18. He threw out 22 percent of potential basestealers, compared to Grandal's 28 percent.
In September, after the Triple-A Oklahoma City season ended, the Dodgers gave an unofficial promotion to the 23-year-old Smith, even though he wasn't on the 40-man roster and wasn't eligible to play. Smith was a first-round Draft pick in 2016.

"He is someone we're extremely high on. We feel there's real potential at bat and behind the plate. We really like the way his mind works," Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations, said at the recent General Managers Meetings. "Bringing him up here in September, giving him the chance to be around the guys, catch bullpens, go about the advance process in a way that you're not caught up in the pressure of going out that night and be able to sit and watch it play out and review it the next day, we feel like it will really benefit him. He's in a really good position to help us at some point next year."
The 20-year-old Ruiz is ranked No. 2 among Dodgers prospects by MLB Pipeline and has the most upside, but has yet to advance beyond Double-A.