Image Credits: Pittsburgh Baseball Now https://pittsburghbaseballnow.com/pirates-all-40-henry-davis-will-get-chance-to-be-big-league-catcher/.

Coming into this year’s 2024 MLB Spring Training, the Pittsburgh Pirates were faced with a few major holes in their roster. Arguably the biggest battle on the team is the battle for the starting catcher position. With Ben Cherrington signing Yasmani Grandal to a 1yr/$2.5m dollar deal this offseason, and other catchers such as Ali Sánchez and Jason Delay in the mix, the position battle was going to be fierce. The Pirates have consistently seemed to neglect Henry Davis and his catching abilities for awhile now, as he really began to struggle behind the plate once he reached Double-A Altoona.

I’ve been fortunate enough to consistently attend games in Altoona, and I can definitely back up the concern of Davis’ defense. I can recall a few situations over the course of his stint in Altoona where he let multiple, routine pitches go past him, often times costing the team largely. One game, Davis had multiple passed balls in an inning, resulting in a loss for the Curve. In these high stakes situations, this cannot happen.

But, according to multiple sources inside the Pittsburgh Pirates system, Davis has been putting in some serious work to change his defensive woes. He reportedly spent quite a bit of the off-season training in Pirate City in Bradenton Florida, where he seemed to totally improve his catching abilities. So far, this has really seemed to benefit Davis, as his catching game has looked way better this Spring from what we can see. Pirates manager Derek Shelton has said multiple times that this spring has been all about getting Davis reps behind the plate, whether that be in game or not. Davis has reportedly been involved in the majority of the Pirates bullpen sessions, working with pitchers as the catcher he was drafted to be. He’s also caught quite a few innings in actual spring games, where he’s also looked way better.

Although mentioning his defense is important given that it was the main reason he’s been kept out of the catching role, it’s not where I would like to focus the majority of my attention with in the argument for him being the starting catcher. Davis has been hitting the ball incredibly well so far this spring, and he’s doing well enough at the plate that it’s nearly impossible to reason with keeping him out of the catcher position any longer. Even if he continues to struggle defensively, it’s worth giving him a shot to learn as long as his bat keeps up.

In 25 plate appearances this spring, Davis has been incredible. He’s hit 4 home runs, put up a wRC+ over 200, posted a wOBA near .500, while also hitting the ball extremely hard. Davis’ max exit velo this spring has been 109.4, which is super impressive given the small sample size. Davis average exit velocity of 97.4 is far higher than his average exit velocity of 88.6 MPH last season. He’s also posted a hard hit rate of 63.6%, and an 18.2% barrel rate, which are both astronomical numbers.

As you can see by the numbers presented, there really isn’t an argument to keep Davis away from the catcher position any longer. In today’s game, the amount of catchers you’ll find with extreme offensive upside is slim, so you have to capitalize when you get the chance. And with Davis, you may be striking gold. Davis has worked incredibly hard this off-season to improve his game, and he deserves some credit through a chance at the position. Although this is an incredibly small sample size, Davis is definitely the option at the catcher position.

If the Pirates want to keep Davis involved at the MLB level, but not in the catcher position, the only other option would be as an outfielder. This would be an embarrassingly bad route to take, as Davis is a really bad defensive outfielder. His -6 OAA last year was a horrendous thing to see. It’s oddly reminiscent of the experiment to move another player with defensive issues to the outfield in Oneil Cruz. This one didn’t go nearly as well as they had hoped either. The only positive thing about Henry Davis in the outfield is his arm strength, but it’s important to note that this would be used much better behind the plate.

Davis’ main competition for the starting job as of right now, seems to be Yasmani Grandal. Grandal’s role when he was signed was to mainly be a mentor to Davis, so starting him over Davis doesn’t really make much sense. Especially when Grandal has posted a sub 100 wRC+ the past two seasons. With Grandal only aging, it really doesn’t make much sense to favor an aging, below league average player over a young catcher, who seems to be a blossoming star through spring training.

Other than Grandal, Davis has been faced with trying to one up the likes of Jason Delay, and new addition Ali Sánchez. Delay is a solid big league catcher when it comes to framing, but outside of that, he provides little to nothing over Henry Davis. There’s a very good chance that the Pirates are going to end up moving on from Delay before too awful long. He’s definitely at the bottom of the depth chart right now. As for Ali Sánchez, you have a similar situation. Sánchez has served mostly as a Triple-A catcher the last two years, and he was right around league average as a hitter the majority of the time. Sánchez likely provides more value than Jason Delay, but he still doesn’t match the upside Davis brings, or a backup option such as Yasmani Grandal.

When you consider the skills Davis has showcased this spring, it’s really hard to reason with keeping him out of the catcher position any longer. Especially since he was already given some Major League experience last year. If it doesn’t work out after they give him a chance, then they should feel free to explore other options. But as of right now, there’s nothing Davis has done that would give Pittsburgh a reason to continue to neglect their former number one overall pick. It’s finally time for Davis to get a shot as the catcher of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and to prove that he was worthy of the number one pick the Pirates used on him in 2021.