SF Giants position preview: Joey Bart and the rest at catcher
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Ten years ago this very day, Buster Posey made his major league debut. He hit 7 home runs and struck out only once, leading the SF Giants to a championship title before the season had even begun. It only took him until the All-Star Break to win his second Commissioner's Trophy, and he would go on to become the winningest catcher in franchise history, appearing in 4,437 Giants wins.
Okay, none of that may be exactly true, but it sure felt like it last year, the first season in the post-Posey era. San Francisco sorely missed his leadership in the dugout, his consistency with the bat, and his superb signal-calling behind the plate. Slowly but surely, though, the Giants have tilled the soil for another long stretch of productivity from their catchers, which starts with 2018 second-overall pick Joey Bart.
Bart got off to an uneven start in 2022, his first time as the presumed starter, enduring a June demotion before returning to enjoy a relatively successful end of the season. Behind him, Austin Wynns and Curt Casali manned the dish, the former taking over the backup role when the latter was traded to the Mariners mid-season. This year's catchers feature Joey Bart once again assuming the starting role, Blake Sabol (acquired via minor league trade), a recent Gold Glover in Roberto Pérez, and Austin Wynns returning as a training camp invitee.
Last year, San Francisco catchers slashed .233/.310/.372, which was actually 6% better than league average at the position in 2022. Even if Bart's improvements are marginal this year (or if we get more of the same rollercoaster-type production), it sets a good basis for a position group that could actually crack the top 10 catching groups of 2023. But to do that, they'll have to improve their 20% caught stealing rate from last year, which may prove difficult with new rules set in place to encourage baserunning. This looks to be a position group that can reliably guide the Giants through the regular season, but won't be able to carry them through the postseason unless Bart makes a huge leap forward.
With that said, let's take a deeper look at the men behind the plate for the Giants in 2023, as well as a key minor leaguer who may make an appearance. For each player, we'll take a look at what they'll need to take a step forward, a step back, stay where they are, and what their absolute* best-case scenario looks like.
*The odds of 2021 happening again are low, but never none.
SF Giants catcher Joey Bart hits a single. (2022)ts
Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports
Joey Bart
2022: 0.8 WAR, .215 BA, .660 OPS, 97 GP, 21% CS (Stat descriptions in Glossary)
Step Forward: If the Giants want to contend, they'll especially need Bart to improve, even amongst a roster filled with lots of hope-so's and what-if's. If he can hit well enough to avoid getting sent down, he should be able to contribute around 120 games with a batting average of .230-.240. With his power and defensive proficiency, that would make Bart a legitimate above-average MLB catcher.
Step Back: The Giants have caught a lot of flack for struggling to develop prospects. If the 2018 #2 overall pick has a sub-.200 deep into May once more, there will be rumblings about this being the death knell for this front office. Simply put, if Bart gets demoted again, it could derail both his career and the Giants' organization for years to come.
Status Quo: Bart is still 26, and he's shown the ability to make adjustments already. Unless something goes terribly wrong, he's likely to put up a somewhat improved offensive season, even if he doesn't threaten to crack league-average as a hitter. Presuming ordinary health, Bart should be a reliable-but-developing player that flashes the potential to be a long-term franchise piece.
Home Run: Lots of them. Bart hit 11 home runs in 261 at-bats last year, and if he doesn't struggle nearly as much with making contact, he could easily break 25 homers in a full season. We haven't talked about his defense much here, mostly because it's never been a problem area, but pairing an offensive breakout with several new faces talking up Bart's game behind the plate would be the cherry on top of a revelatory season.
Blake Sabol
2022 (Minors): .284 BA, .859 OPS, 123 GP, 14% CS
Step Forward: A cup of coffee. Sabol was acquired from the Reds following the Rule 5 Draft, in part because of a .969 OPS in AAA. If he can make it to the big leagues this season and show that he can be an intriguing platoon complement to Joey Bart, he'll have justified the organization's faith in him.
Step Back: Faring like a Giants' prospect. Fair or not, hitters in the Giants' system simply have not done well in the past few years. Sabol's offensive upside may play in AAA, but we've seen more prominent prospects get called up and fizzle against major league talent. His defense, as emphasized by his allowing a passed ball in a sixth of his games, may also prove nettlesome.
Status Quo: For now, the status quo may be the kind of AAAA option that the Giants have acquired numerous times in the past few years: good enough to fill in if necessary, a key piece of organizational depth, but not enough seasoning or potential to really factor into future plans. Sabol has experience in the outfield as well, which may be enough for him to stick around.
Home Run: Sabol follows Austin Wynns, Curt Casali, Eli Whiteside, and many others as the Giants' undisputed backup catcher. A Bart-Sabol combo that offers better-than-average offensive upside with defense that doesn't cause the Giants to unravel like they did in 2022 would set San Francisco up well for the next few seasons.
Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Roberto Perez (55) runs the bases. (2022)
Katie Stratman-USA TODAY Sports
Roberto Pérez
2022: 0.6 WAR, .233 BA, .700 OPS, 21 GP, 33% CS
Step Forward: Multi-millionaire. The Giants beat out the Red Sox to sign Roberto Pérez to a minor-league deal, which can top out at $4 million if Pérez can battle his way to to the major league club. Pérez is a two-time Gold Glover, and the Giants will look to him to provide defensive stability to a team that sorely lacked it last year.
Step Back: Injury strikes again. The biggest wart in Pérez' post-30 career is that he hasn't played more than 50 games since 2019. If some combination of his career 77 OPS+ and lack of durability show up too prominently, Pérez could easily be the casualty of a Spring Training position battle.
Status Quo: Given the incentives, it's not hard to imagine the Giants stashing Pérez on the AAA squad until an injury or trade opportunity opens up a depth spot for Pérez. It's very possible that either he or Sabol starts the season in the backup spot, and they trade places frequently based on the arcane roster machinations that Zaidi employs.
Home Run: Like Sabol, taking charge of the backup role is the clear win here. Despite the short sample size, Pérez put up a .700 OPS with his signature elite defensive work. If the Giants could get a full season of that from their backup catcher, we could be talking about a top-5 season from this position group in September.
Austin Wynns
2022: 0.3 WAR, .259 BA, .671 OPS, 65 GP, 19% CS
Step Forward: We Can Win With Wynns! Backup catchers are a kind of nomadic tribesmen, wandering the wastes between MLB rosters and finding homes between cataclysmic crunches and prospect deluges. Having Wynns back on the roster would be a pleasant surprise, if not for the continuity that he'd bring amidst a team that's changed dramatically in the past few months.
Step Backwards: He doesn't make the team. I really don't know who's likeliest to emerge as the starting backup catcher this year, and I'm even less confident that whoever that is is going to stay in that position the whole season. But between Pérez and Sabol, there might just not ever be an opportunity for Wynns if he doesn't do anything impressive out of the gate. If so, he might not ever wear a Giants uniform again.
Status Quo: Like last year, Wynns could hang around until an opportunity presents itself through trade or attrition, and then slot in as a decent option behind Joey Bart. He could also get a shot early in the year, and then be the one who gives way to Pérez or Sabol or someone else. Such is the life of the backup catcher.
Home Run: You guessed it! Wynns takes advantage of the continuity on the team and ups his production to the point where he's taking the lion's share of the backup starts, and maybe even pushing Bart for the occasional extra day here and there. That's not to say that Wynns necessarily has the highest ceiling of the catchers here, but he did hit .259 last season, and improving on that would make him a valuable asset to just about any organization.
SF Giants catcher Patrick Bailey runs the bases at the alternate site. (2020)
Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Patrick Bailey:
2022 (Minors): .225 BA, .761 OPS, 83 GP, 30% CS
Step Forward: September call-up. Bailey (the 21st-best prospect in the system) has spent the last two years with the Emeralds, San Francisco's A+ affiliate. If he starts in AA this year, there's an outside shot that Bailey sees action near the end of this year. His strong defensive acumen, as suggested by his 30% caught-stealing rate, continues to highlight the potential the Giants saw when they drafted him in the first round of the 2020 draft.
Step Back: Another lost year for a high draft pick in the Giants' farm system. Like most prospects, there's a solid chance we never see Bailey's name called for the orange and black. An aggressive jump through the minors would be nice, but it's also not more likely than more scuffling at a level Bailey should be conquering.
Status Quo: Next year. Bailey has horrendous splits as a switch hitter, posting a .460 OPS against lefties. He wouldn't fit as a complement to Bart, and a Bailey-Sabol pairing to end 2023 probably means that something went horribly, horribly wrong. Still, if Bailey continues refining his approach, he's not far off from a 2024 debut.
Home Run: Bailey blows us all away and becomes hotter than Bart ever has. Nominally this is where I'd say that he locks in the backup role, but in his situation, he'd have to do more than that. So this is getting into the realm of the imagination. He molds himself as the pinnacle of the front office's vision, pairing a low strikeout rate with a high walk rate, and hits doubles about as often as he hits home runs. This would be a preseason-Geno-Smith-for-MVP kind of bet, and I wouldn't in good conscience recommend it. But if you're looking for a glimmer of hope that the Giants can tap into the developmental pipeline that's made the Dodgers and Padres contenders, well, hey. There are worse players and worse position groups to dream on.
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Glossary:
WAR - Wins Above Replacement
BA - Batting Average
OPS - On Base % + Slugging %
GP - Games Played
CS - Caught Stealing %
