The Mussels’ Week: Two Rookie Catchers, Two Ninth Innings
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Fort Myers carries two catchers from the 2026 draft class. In one week, both of them got the ninth-inning at-bat every young catcher pictures.
The Minnesota Twins used two of their first 43 picks in the 2026 MLB Draft on catchers, and both of them report to the same clubhouse. Vahn Lackey and Carson Tinney play for the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels, the Twins’ Single-A affiliate, and both made their first professional appearance in the last days of July.
Lackey went No. 3 overall out of Georgia Tech, where he won the Johnny Bench Award, given each year to the best catcher in college baseball. He signed for $9,497,500, the third-largest bonus in draft history. We covered his pro debut when he joined the Mussels on July 30. Tinney went No. 43, in the second round, after one season at the University of Texas that followed a transfer from Notre Dame. He stands 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds and carries a 60-grade arm on the scouting scale, the grade scouts give to a throwing arm that changes how a running game is played.
| Vahn Lackey | Carson Tinney | |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 draft slot | No. 3 overall | No. 43 overall |
| College | Georgia Tech | Texas |
| College average | .397 | .326 |
| College home runs | 20 | 22 |
| Pro debut | July 30 | July 29 |
| Ninth-inning swing | Two-run single, Aug. 18 | Walk-off homer, Aug. 12 |
College credentials buy a player nothing in Single-A. The arms are sharper there. The sequencing is more varied. Every professional at-bat is a small exam, and Tinney was failing plenty of them. He was hitting .171 through his first 44 plate appearances and striking out nearly a third of the time.
Then, across six days in August, both catchers came to the plate in the ninth inning with the game sitting in front of them.
August 12: the bat breaks and the ball keeps going
Tinney had already driven in two runs with a home run in the third inning against the Clearwater Threshers, and the Mussels had already given the lead back. By the ninth, Fort Myers needed a rally at home to save the night.
Lackey started it. He tripled, the first professional triple of his career, and stood on third base as the tying run. Tinney came up behind him with a chance to end the night.
Tinney swung, and the bat broke in his hands but the ball traveled 363 feet anyway. Lackey scored ahead of him and Tinney followed him around the bases, and those two runs ended the game. Tinney was not steering that swing or trying to place it, and a hitter who is steering the ball cannot break a bat and still clear a fence. He took the same swing he had been taking all month, found the barrel, and let bat speed decide the rest.
That walk-off gave Tinney two home runs and four RBI on the night, the first multi-homer game of his professional career, and earning Fort Myers its fourth straight win. Twins Daily named him Minor League Co-Hitter of the Day. He leads every player the Twins drafted in 2026 with three home runs.
His batting average sat at .171 that week and his OPS sat at .800. The average counted the misses. The OPS counted what happened when he connected, and that is the number the Twins drafted him for.
August 18: the right swing, the wrong ending
Lackey got his own ninth inning six days later, on the road against the Palm Beach Cardinals. The game was tied 5-5. Fort Myers had runners on the corners with one out, and Palm Beach pulled its infield in to cut down the go-ahead run at the plate. A drawn-in infield turns a routine ground ball into an out at home, and every hitter in that box knows it.
A drawn-in infield also leaves lanes behind it. Lackey stayed on the lower half of the pitch, kept his hands inside the ball, and bounced a single through one of those lanes. Two runs scored. Fort Myers led 7-5 with three outs to get.
Palm Beach scored three in the bottom half and won it 8-7 on a walk-off single of its own.
Lackey still read the defense, found the lane, and put his team ahead in the ninth inning of a professional game at 21 years old. In three weeks of pro ball he has thrown out six runners, tripled to set up Tinney’s walk-off, and taken the lead late in a tight game. Those three moments belong to him. The scoreboard that followed the last one does not.
Two catchers, one clubhouse, one week. Tinney’s swing won a game, Lackey’s swing did its job while the game got away, and both of them walked back out the next night to take another at-bat. That is the part you can copy on a Tuesday in August. Take your full swing, read what the defense gives you, and grade your at-bat on what you controlled. The season sorts out the results. The at-bats are yours right now.
Try this at your next practice
- Barrel-contact drill. Set one tee on the inner half of the zone and one on the outer half. Take ten swings at each. The goal is to find the barrel and let the pitch tell you where the ball goes, not to pull it. Tinney broke a bat and still hit the ball 363 feet because he was swinging, not steering.
- Drawn-in infield hitting. Ask your coach to bring the infield in, then work on driving ground balls through the gaps between the fielders. Those lanes are wider than they look against a compressed defense. Find them in practice so you recognize them in the ninth inning.
- Post-game at-bat review. After your next game, write down one at-bat you are proud of, whatever the scoreboard says. A two-strike foul ball that kept you alive. A walk that extended the inning. A hard grounder somebody made a great play on. Own what you did well. The effort is the part that carries into the next game.
Sources: Tinney’s Second Homer of the Night Walks off Threshers (OurSports Central) · Carson Tinney hits walk-off in 1st multi-home run game (MLB.com) · Twins Minor League Report 8/12 (Twins Daily) · Palm Beach Walks off Fort Myers 8-7 (OurSports Central) · Twins Minor League Report 8/18 (Twins Daily) · Vahn Lackey Pro Debut (CatchersHome)
