Henry Davis will get prime opportunity in 2024 to prove he's catcher of the future
With Endy Rodriguez out for season, Henry Davis will get his shot on the big stage.
I noticed two things on Twitter when the Endy Rodriguez news broke last night. The first was more of a reminder that sarcasm is more challenging to detect on a social media app, followed by me questioning whether I’ve been too hard on Henry Davis.
I’ve been in the camp of not being sold on him being a big league catcher, which was backed up by the organization throwing him in right field to learn on the fly while also trying to learn major league pitching.
The results, on both sides, weren’t pretty.
It’s also been fueled by a couple of scouts (one former) not associated with the Pirates messaging me and mentioning they weren’t too sold either.
Davis has a laser cannon for an arm. We saw it in the outfield last year, but it hasn’t translated behind, as he has thrown out just 15.28% of would-be base stealers while in the minors.
With the new rules, having more teams focus on stealing more bases and having a catcher behind the plate to control the running game is much more critical.
He significantly improved the passed balls this past season, so there is a positive to take out of his work in 2023.
Hindsight is 20/20, but this was the downfall of moving him to right field when you called him up when you could have had him continue to develop as a catcher in the minors.
Now, he’s behind in his development as a catcher, and with the added focus behind the plate, we could see it impact him offensively - we saw how Endy struggled at times last year.
After Ben Cherington continually said that Davis would enter spring as a catcher, it didn’t seem like a crazy idea that he would begin the regular season in Triple-A to further his work.
But here we are, in a position where Davis - with all of 672.1 innings behind the plate in the minors in two and a half years - is now in charge of the major league pitching staff.
A pitching staff that will have a lot of questions going into the season, whether based on experience or the fact they ended 2023 with two healthy traditional starters.
By all accounts, going beyond all of the ‘hard worker’ cliches, Davis seems like the kind of guy willing to do everything possible to improve.
It seems like it’s unfortunate that he will be doing this in the majors where the games matter more, especially for a team trying to avoid another losing season after improving once again.
But Davis will have the opportunity, uncontested, to prove that he, not Endy, is the catcher of the future for the Pirates.
Personally I am excited to see what he can do. No matter what the opinions of the team and their progress, Hank's success is high on the list of key factors. Obviously his bat is his carrying tool, but if he can be a competent catcher that opens many possibilities. On a related note, there has been mention of his injury last year both impacting his hitting (timing seems to align with his struggle, but it could also have been MLB pitching adjusting) but also preventing them from letting him catch. Anybody recall any official comments / timelines? I'm not trying to make excuses, but it can also potentially add to my optimism (or fear he is always getting HBP and hurt).
He'll never have the defensive potential that Endy has but then many don't. But he's capable of being a above average receiver with very strong offense so it could work out. I don't see how you can't keep Delay here to help Henry learn a few things with the pitching staff plus he has shown he's more then capable as a backup catcher can be.