{"id":102063,"date":"2025-06-12T18:03:07","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T22:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=102063"},"modified":"2025-06-12T18:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T22:03:07","slug":"pirates-davis-deserves-to-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/06\/12\/pirates-davis-deserves-to-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates No. 1 Draft Pick Showing Why He Deserves to Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since Henry Davis<\/a> took over the catching chores for the Pittsburgh Pirates, they haven\u2019t missed a beat. In fact, they\u2019re playing better. The number one catcher, Joey Bart<\/a>, went on the seven-day concussion injured list<\/a> on May 28. Endy Rodr\u00edguez<\/a> was reinstated from the IL that same day. It appeared he\u2019d share catching duties with Davis in Bart\u2019s absence. However, Rodr\u00edguez went on the IL last Sunday for the second time this season after experiencing elbow discomfort. By necessity, the bulk of the catching chores fell to Davis.<\/p>\n

Then a funny thing happened. Davis, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 June Amateur Draft<\/a> out of the University of Louisville<\/a>, started to live up to the hype.<\/p>\n

Davis Showing Pirates He Deserves to Play<\/h3>\n

When Davis didn\u2019t make the club<\/a> out of spring training, it looked like he might be a No. 1 bust. By all accounts, he\u2019s a hard worker and not one to pout. He got another chance with the Pirates when Rodr\u00edguez went on the IL<\/a> on April 15.<\/p>\n

When Davis was drafted, the experts felt that he had a future in the majors as a hitter but not as a catcher. He and Rodr\u00edguez were called up together, perhaps prematurely, in 2023. The Pirates’ offense was suffering. A cast of thousands in right field wasn\u2019t producing. Neither was catcher Austin Hedges<\/a>, a highly regarded pitch framer who made Mario Mendoza<\/a> look like Ted Williams<\/a> at bat. The Pirates decided to have Davis learn right field on the fly at the major league level while Rodr\u00edguez took Hedges\u2019 place behind the dish.<\/p>\n

Now, suddenly, Davis looks good as a catcher. There was never any question about his arm strength, but he\u2019s improved dramatically at all elements of the position. He\u2019s been Paul Skenes<\/a>\u2019 personal catcher this season. Last year, it was Yasmani Grandal<\/a> who caught Skenes<\/a>. Seems Skenes is difficult to catch, and Bart isn\u2019t deemed to be up to the task. It says here that Davis should remain the primary catcher once Bart returns from the IL. That could be any day now, with Bart having gone to Triple-A Indianapolis<\/a> on a rehab assignment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Case for Davis Over Bart<\/h3>\n

After starting the season as one of the Pirates\u2019 better hitters, Bart has cooled off. At the end of April, he was hitting .297\/.416\/.405. For the month of May, however, he hit .181\/.272\/.208. He has just one home run this season, well off the pace of last year\u2019s 13 home runs.<\/p>\n

Davis started to come around with the bat on May 13, so let\u2019s compare the two Pirates catchers since that date through June 11. In 16 games, Davis hit .250\/.304\/.462, 3 HR, and 8 RBI. The Pirates are 10-6 in those games. I\u2019ve felt that pacing is more appropriate for horse racing than baseball, but for what it\u2019s worth, I note that those numbers translate to 30 home runs on a 162-game average. That\u2019s more than acceptable with a .250 average. On the other hand, in 11 games, Bart hit .100\/.143\/.125 with a lone RBI. In those games, the Pirates are 4-7.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Davis has nabbed four of 16 would-be base stealers during that time, while Bart has caught just two of nine. The major league average \u201ccaught stealing\u201d percentage is 23.4 percent, so Davis is doing well in that department.<\/p>\n

During that same stretch, when Davis has caught, Pirates pitchers have surrendered 33 runs, or 2.17 per nine innings, according to my calculations. With Bart behind the plate, Pirates pitchers have given up 78 runs, or 5.31 per nine innings. Of course, this analysis has its flaws. Bart is at a distinct disadvantage because he doesn\u2019t get to catch Skenes, and other factors might have an effect. But this is at least somewhat instructive, and it\u2019s all you\u2019re getting for free.<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

Since becoming the Pirates’ manager<\/a>, Don Kelly<\/a> has been noticeably different from his predecessor<\/a>, Derek Shelton<\/a>, in many ways. One of those ways that\u2019s been refreshing to Pirates fans is that he doesn\u2019t hand out scholarships. He\u2019s awarded playing time based on merit. Tommy Pham<\/a> and his $4 million salary<\/a> have mostly ridden the bench since Kelly took over. The guess here is that when Bart returns from Indianapolis, Davis will continue as Pittsburgh\u2019s primary catcher. Davis has earned it and Kelly gives to those who earn.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credits: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since Henry Davis took over the catching chores for the Pittsburgh Pirates, they haven\u2019t missed a beat. In fact, they\u2019re playing better. The number one catcher, Joey Bart, went on the seven-day concussion injured list on May 28. Endy Rodr\u00edguez was reinstated from the IL that same day. It appeared he\u2019d share catching duties with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5010,"featured_media":102073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1071],"tags":[3160,28961,6225,4875,5766,6371,1752,2255],"class_list":["post-102063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pirates","category-mlb","tag-derek-shelton","tag-don-kelly","tag-endy-rodriguez","tag-henry-davis","tag-joey-bart","tag-paul-skenes","tag-ted-williams","tag-yasmani-grandal"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5010"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102063"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102075,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102063\/revisions\/102075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}