After a month at Triple-A Indianapolis, former first total decide Henry Davis is headed again to the majors, as Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Put up-Gazette (X hyperlink) reviews that the Pirates are calling Davis up prematurely of their subsequent sport on Tuesday in opposition to the Dodgers. The corresponding transfer isn’t but recognized, however it appears probably that backup catcher Grant Koch might be optioned to Triple-A a number of days after making his huge league debut.
Davis, the primary total decide of the 2021 draft, hit .213/.302/.351 over 255 plate appearances after making his MLB debut final season. Davis solely performed as a catcher in two video games throughout his rookie season, however headed into 2024 slated for a heavier workload behind the plate as soon as fellow rookie catcher Endy Rodriguez underwent season-ending UCL surgical procedure throughout the offseason. Accidents to Yasmani Grandal and Jason Delay additional cleared the trail for extra taking part in time for Davis at catcher, however the struggles continued each offensively and defensively.
Pitch-framing stays a problem for Davis, and the Defensive Runs Saved metric charges him a -2 primarily based on his 184 1/3 innings at catcher this season. With the bat, Davis has hit solely .162/.280/.206, and struck out in 29 of his 83 plate appearances.
The choice was made on Might 3 to ship Davis to Indianapolis for extra seasoning, and Davis has responded by hitting .286/.433/.649 with seven dwelling runs over 97 PA. Whereas Davis torched minor league pitching throughout his preliminary journey up the Pirates’ pipeline, it ought to be famous that Davis had solely 63 PA at Triple-A when the Bucs first promoted him final season. It might be that he was merely introduced up a bit too quickly, even when Davis additionally would possibly’ve compelled the Pirates’ hand by wanting like he had little left to show within the minors.
Delay simply began a minor league rehab project, so whereas he’s eligible to be activated from the 60-day IL later this week, he’ll want fairly a little bit of time to get ramped up after lacking nearly your complete season as a consequence of meniscus surgical procedure. Joey Bart was additionally simply positioned on the 10-day IL with a thumb harm, whereas Grandal is wholesome however has struggled badly on the plate. With this lack of depth and Davis’ total import as a cornerstone of Pittsburgh’s rebuild, he ought to have loads of runway for taking part in time because the group’s common catcher. Andrew McCutchen has the on a regular basis DH spot fairly properly lined, so whereas Davis might conceivably get some extra work as an outfielder if the Pirates are on the lookout for methods to get his bat into the lineup, the likeliest state of affairs is that Grandal simply strikes right into a backup position.
