Pirates Have 3 Catchers. Do They Have a Starter?

The Pirates set a franchise record for most home runs hit by their catchers ever.

They had a really highly touted rookie come up and make an impact in the second half of the season.

Their former first overall draft pick has grown into a good defensive catcher.

Why does it still feel like catcher is still a big question mark?

Good morning, and welcome to Offbeat, here on North Shore Nine, presented by FanDuel.

My name is Alex Stumpf, and this is a daily look at your Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Pirates have three catchers on their forty-man roster currently.

They have Rafael Flores Jr., who had a good offensive season as a rookie.

They had Henry Davis, and they have Endy Rodríguez.

Now, of those three, biggest question mark i think is with Endy Rodríguez i don't know what his future with this organization holds

because whenever he was on the field this year he was really good he had an ops over nine hundred against right-handed pitching and i know this team has left-handed hitting problems and he didn't

contribute a whole lot you know even though he's a switch hitter against southpaws but he showed that he can still catch up to major league pitching, that he can make an impact.

We saw a little taste of that guy who was their minor league hitter of the year, who just flourished into this great prospect that we thought, maybe he could be the catcher of the

future.

Something this organization has been looking for so long.

Then he had hip surgery in August and we don't know what his future holds right now.

This is three straight years where he has missed significant time because of a surgery or an injury.

And while the pirates still think, yes, he can still be a catcher.

This isn't like a career threatening injury surgery procedure.

You do wonder, he's got to be arbitration eligible, and while it's not a huge figure, I don't know how much money the Pirates have available, how much Bob Nutting is going to let

them spend whenever their projected payroll is in the ballpark of a hundred million as is.

If you do tender him a contract and the lockout happens, he is going to be rehabbing away from the club without the club being able to check in at all.

There is going to be a bit of a leap of faith since they can't have any contact with him.

And you can say, well, okay, you non-roster him, non-tender him, sign him to a minor league deal.

He could still rehab.

He could still do everything with the club because he won't be on the That is a huge concession for a player.

I have to imagine that if he got non-tendered, he would get interest across the league.

Maybe it won't be a major league contract, but he would get some phone calls.

Because like I said, OPS over .900 against right-handed pitching.

I don't know if he hits well enough to be a first baseman in general or whatever.

It was a smaller sample size this year.

I get it, but man, I saw a whole lot.

Of that twenty twenty two Endy Rodríguez this year.

But the number one predictor of future injury is previous injury and after three straight years.

You have to wonder.

Boken, it has to be now.

You are eligible, you only have three years of team control remaining.

There's just not a lot of time left on this clock.

Someone who also has over three years of service time and will be arbitration eligible for the first time is Henry Davis, who has grown into being a good defensive catcher.

We're going to start off with the positive here.

He is not just Paul Skenes' personal caddy.

He is a good defensive catcher.

He is able to block well.

He's able to throw well.

He gets good pop time.

Average pitch framer, but that's really all he needs to be whenever the other aspects of his defensive games are good.

Toolsy, he translates the tools well.

He's a good defensive catcher.

He also just had his third straight year with an OPS under.

And not to rain on the parade because some people will be like, hey, it was a seventy three point jump in OPS.

If he does that again next year, he's in the six fifties.

That's usable for a good defensive catcher.

But I don't know.

The expected stats were actually a hair worse than they were in twenty twenty five.

I.

He works hard.

It's never an effort thing with him, but I stand by just the conversations I've had with analysts, with scouts across the league about what the issue is.

And I keep hearing about where the head of the barrel is making contact and how it gets out in front too often.

And that's why whenever he does make hard contact, it's usually right down the left field line and it usually veers foul.

He's not staying back on it.

So whenever he talks about how he's working with something with his legs or something with his follow-through, it's like, I stand by.

I've held this position for a while.

I think it's the swing.

And I think I said that earlier this year.

It's been the swing for a while where, yeah, he will still run into a couple.

He hit ten home runs this year.

But the production is, he's not the same framer as him, but it's very Austin Hedges-like.

Hedges-y.

Say that five times fast.

I couldn't even say it once.

It's not what they thought they were getting whenever they drafted him first overall.

And look, if he goes in next year as the backup catcher, I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of quarrels with that.

But I can't do another year being like, okay, will Henry Davis have an offensive breakout?

If it happens, I'll be happy for him.

But three straight years, it's the same thing as Endy Rodríguez.

Three straight years of pretty much the same story.

It's going to be a lot to break that.

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Then you got Rafael Flores Jr., who I will say right now, if you look internally, is probably the right person to have as the pole position for starting catcher next year.

Because he had a good offensive season.

He showed that he had a good control of the zone.

He's able to get the bat through the zone quickly, generate hard contact.

Yeah, there's still some swing and miss in his game.

I think that could be lessened as he gets more at-bats, more major league playing time, but he showed a lot last year.

He also showed two clear weaknesses of why I'm not ready to ordain him the starting catcher.

One is he's the defense.

He is not a good blocker.

He really struggles with balls in the dirt.

I go back to that Detroit series and how Bubba Chandler ended his season with a strikeout on a ball that Flores couldn't handle.

And runs came across, and it was a rough way for Bubba Chandler to end his year.

He made a really good pitch and got the strikeout and had to walk off, had to give up the ball anyway.

That's rough.

Saw him struggle with balls in the dirt, and look, Jared Jones sliders are nasty.

There is a lot of nasty breaking pitches that are going to be thrown in the dirt, and you need a catcher who can handle it.

I remember whenever Henry Davis going into twenty twenty four, you know how he went into, pretty much catcher boot camp.

Just stayed at Pirate City, really worked on it, and he really grew as a receiver.

Flores doesn't really have that opportunity this year.

Last year, he was one of the first guys at Pirate City.

He really wanted to get to know all his new pitchers, get acclimated.

With the lockout.

he doesn't have much opportunity there.

It's unfortunate.

Because here's someone who has a good offensive profile, but the defense gives me pause.

And there's one thing with the offense that really concerns me also, and it's he, look, he crushed breaking pitches.

He did well against off-speed pitches.

Those are usually tough for rookies to hit.

He didn't hit velocity this year.

Against pitches that were ninety five miles and above.

This is what I would consider high velocity.

If you want to say this is stat gerrymandering because I'm counting a ninety five mile per hour fastball as much as I counted a Jacob Misiorowski one hundred and three mile per hour.

That's fine.

I'm just using this as.

A reference point.

And out of these pitches, it came out to ninety seven miles per hour.

So it's not outrageous here.

Pitches ninety five miles per hour or above.

One fifty eight batting average, two oh six slugging percentage, two nineteen.

I'm sorry, two oh six OBP, two nineteen slugging percentage and a thirty one point four percent whiff rate.

That is concerning.

If you have a clear defensive question mark and you're not catching up to high velocity, those are two clear weaknesses.

And he did tear up, in August and September.

But, those are the dog days.

That's the end of the year.

Arms start to get more tired.

What is he going to do whenever it's May, whenever it's June?

And guys are more consistently hitting ninety five and getting that little flame graphic.

At the ballpark or on the home broadcast.

It's a real issue.

And I don't think these are two issues that will, definitely say, oh, he can't be a catcher.

He can't be a major league catcher.

But it's enough for me to be like, are we one hundred percent sure?

That he is the guy.

Because I don't know.

I don't see any help on the free agent market.

I don't know.

outside of Hunter Goodman, who I imagine is going to get interest across the league, I don't know who on the trade market could really make an impact here.

Even so, the Pirates have invested so many resources in the catcher after a while that at some point, look, the sunk cost fallacy comes in eventually.

Be like, we have invested enough.

Rafael Flores Jr.

is here because David Bednar was traded.

This bullpen was an issue for four months this year.

And I don't think, Bednar alone was going to fix it, but there were a lot of blown saves.

There were a lot of blown leaves.

There were a lot of losses that you have to wonder what would have happened had the Pirates just felt good about their catcher depth and kept their closer.

Wonder how this season would have gone.

They've invested a lot in this position.

And look, to their credit, they do have a young rookie who does look like he could be an impact player.

He could finally be that catcher one that they have been searching for in the entire Ben Cherington era.

That the closest they ever really came to it, in my opinion, was Jacob Stallings for two years.

They need a catcher.

This is a very important position going into next year.

I think you might have to look internally here and just hope that Flores takes a step or Henry Davis maybe bucks the trend or maybe Endy Rodríguez shows that he's still healthy and that at some point in

twenty twenty seven, he'll be ready to go.

There's talent here, but that doesn't always necessarily mean there are two clear studs.

Thank you so much for listening to Offbeat here on North Shore Nine presented by FanDuel.

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We'll talk again tomorrow.

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