Tucker Barnhart Excited About Working with Diamondbacks Pitchers

The new catcher is making an impact behind the plate while discovering how great a pitching staff the Diamondbacks have.

The Arizona Diamondbacks signed Tucker Barnhart to be the team's new backup catcher not because of his offense, but because of his established pedigree as a strong defensive backstop and his excellent work in working with pitching staffs. The two-time Gold Glove winner forms a partnership at the catching position with Gabriel Moreno that vies for one of the best-catching duos from a defensive standpoint in MLB.

The former Reds starter worked with many underwhelming pitching staffs in Cincinnati over his time there and still helped them with a better-than-average ERA while limiting errors. He's only had 22 errors over 11+ seasons. Plus, his 31% career caught-stealing rate is better than the MLB average of 26%, showing that Barnhart can nab baserunners.

This Diamondbacks pitching staff might be the best he's ever worked with in his career. He has currently two All-Star worthy starters, including a CY Young contender, along with an upswing high potential right-hander in Brandon Pfaadt.

Combine that with the pending debuts with Jordan Montgomery and Eduardo Rodriguez, and it's no wonder that Barnhart has plenty of excitement working with these starters. Plus, Tommy Henry and Ryne Nelson are no slouches considering their recent starts this past week.

While it's a short sample size of five games, Barnhart has made a start with each of the five current starting pitchers on the D-backs. Over those five games, the team pitching ERA is 1.84 with 2.25 runs allowed per 9 innings. That's across 171 plate appearances and 44 innings.

Yes, it's far smaller than Moreno's 99 innings, but the team ERA with him behind the plate is 4.73. The team has racked up 42 strikeouts with Barnhart behind the plate compared to 87 with Moreno. Barnhart has 1 defensive run saved so far.

The D-backs are 3-2 with Barnhart behind the plate. In the games they've won, the team has allowed a total of four runs. That's with Brandon Pfaadt, Tommy Henry, and Zac Gallen pitching. Merrill Kelly gave up just two runs with Barnhart against the vaunted Yankees.

Plus, Ryne Nelson shut down the Braves' offense for the most part with just three runs given up in five innings. All five starters have found strong success with Barnhart.

Zac Gallen trusts Barnhart enough to let him call a lot of the pitches like he did Sunday against the Cardinals when Barnhart called for four curveballs in a row, a rarity in baseball. "I think that was Tuck's call. I think he called the curveball. I felt pretty good about it. I felt like I had a solid feel for it that inning so I felt pretty confident just throwing it."

While Gallen did call some pitches, it was clear they had a great relationship and chemistry as pitcher and catcher while Gallen shut down the Cardinals offense for six scoreless innings with only one true threat to score in the second inning. The Cardinals had the bases loaded with one out and Gallen allowed none to score.

Barnhart said about calling pitches that "We were on the same page quite a bit, just a couple of times that he hit...I called most of them. There were a couple of situations where before I hit the button, he hit something and it's just a constant conversation."

It's clear from talking with Tucker Barnhart that he loves catching the Diamondbacks pitchers, especially the starters. "These guys give the catchers so much freedom and creativity behind the plate. You can set up pitches, you can attack the zone. You can do all the things with these guys."

Barnhart made sure to point out how impressive it was that Gallen could pummel the strike zone with four pitches for strikes and immediately put hitters on the defensive. It was how he believes Gallen won the turning point in the game in the second inning that ultimately let the D-backs win as a turning point can happen in the "first inning...30th inning, it doesn't matter when it is."

"I thought he was awesome. He threw four pitches for strikes. Put them on the defensive right away and he's a blast to catch." Barnhart loves that Gallen constantly is striving to be better and that it "says a lot for a guy who accomplished so much in his career to continue to get better."

Barnhart was impressed at how good Gallen's slider is after he's worked on it all spring. "I thought it was super sharp in the pen. That was the pitch that stuck out to me the most in terms of the quality of it before the game.

It isn't just Gallen that Barnhart enjoys catching as he pointed out to Merrill Kelly right after the game that "you guys are a blast to catch."

"It allows you to be creative, allows you to just attack hitters that for Merrill that I was already thinking about the second time through before we were through the first time through the order, just in terms of the ability it allows you to be creative and set up pitches and sequence things differently and just a lot of fun."