SAN FRANCISCO — When Logan Webb was asked how he felt about throwing to two rookie catchers after the San Francisco Giants traded two-time Gold Glove winner Patrick Bailey to the Cleveland Guardians, he pointed to a familiar example. “If you look around baseball, teams have been very, very successful with young catchers,” Webb said. “It’s different than it used to be. There’s a lot more help with analytics and knowing what to call. There’s not as much with the feel part of it. Who was it? Wasn’t (Gabriel) Moreno a rookie when the Diamondbacks went to the World Series?”
A defensive standout, Patrick Bailey had a .146 batting average with one extra-base hit this season before he was traded to the Guardians.
He paused when reminded that Buster Posey also broke in as a rookie during a championship run. “I was going more recent there,” Webb said, smiling. “But yeah, exactly. Look at Buster. If anyone knows better, it’s him.”
The parallels are striking. In 2010, the Giants dealt two-time Gold Glove catcher Bengie Molina on July 1 to clear the way for top prospect Buster Posey. Then-general manager Brian Sabean committed fully to Posey, who led the team to its first World Series title in 53 years in San Francisco. Now Posey, in his role as president of baseball operations, made an even earlier and similarly stunning move this Saturday, turning the catching duties over to rookies Jesus Rodriguez and Daniel Susac. Susac is on a Triple-A rehab assignment for right elbow neuritis but should return by midweek.
Rookie Jesus Rodriguez will be counted on to provide more offense than Patrick Bailey did this season. (Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
Neither Rodriguez nor Susac is viewed as a generational talent, nor did they come up through the Giants’ system. But both have demonstrated far more hitting potential than Bailey, whose .146 average and lone extra-base hit had become a glaring weakness in a lineup scoring the fewest runs in the majors. Bailey’s two Gold Gloves could not compensate for a bat that stood out for all the wrong reasons.
Would Posey have made such a dramatic change if the rest of the lineup had produced as expected? “It’s hard to say,” Posey said. “More so than detracting from some of the shortcomings for Bailey offensively, I’d rather just focus on Jesus swinging the bat well at Triple A, and then Daniel, with a nice start here. Hopefully, that’s some momentum that they can carry forward.”
Posey declined to provide details on how the trade came together with Cleveland but acknowledged there was “plenty of interest” in Bailey, suggesting the Giants were actively shopping him. Webb added that Bailey “had a sense” a deal might be coming. After sitting in three of the past four games, Bailey’s grip on the starting job was clearly loosening.
“It’s more the confidence that we have in Jesus Rodriguez and Daniel Susac and the strides that we feel like they’ve made defensively, and both of them swinging the bat well,” Posey said. “And not necessarily only Patty, who’s been off to a slow start offensively this year, but just as a whole, trying to find ways to get more runs on the board.”
The Giants purchased the contract of catcher Logan Porter, whose stay is expected to be brief. Once Susac is activated, he will likely step into a regular role alongside Rodriguez.
