Daniel Susac’s Story is Great, but Giants Have Right Starting Catcher

Daniel Susac’s story is one of the best the San Francisco Giants have to offer so far this season.

He’s a Roseville, Calif., native whose older brother played for the San Francisco Giants for a couple of seasons when he was a kid. He was the Athletics’ first-round pick in 2022 out of Arizona and San Francisco scooped him up in the Rule 5 Draft.

He’s off to a red-hot start. He is 6-for-7 at the plate and in collecting hits in his first five at-bats he became the first Major League player to start his career 5-for-5 since 1977 when Ted Cox did it.

It’s a great story. But he’s also a rookie, and there are good reasons to continue to trust Patrick Bailey behind the plate while mixing Susac into the order a bit more.

Daniel Susac and Patrick Bailey

San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey walks away from the plate. — San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey. | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

Before Wednesday’s game with Philadelphia, manager Tony Vitello was asked why he wasn’t starting Susac in the game after he started in Tuesday’s night’s game. Aside from the fact that most managers don’t start the same catcher in a day game after a night game, manager Tony Vitello had other reasons.

“With Bailey and Susac we mapped that out well in advance,” Vitello said to NBC Sports Bay Area and other outlets. “That doesn’t mean you stick to it, but it worked out that way so we can set them up the right way. You don’t want to wear Bailey out especially early in the year.”

Vitello could have used Susac as the designated hitter and rode the hot bat but opted to stick with getting Luis Arraez off his feet for the day and use him at DH. After all he’s a .320 hitter and has a considerable track record that Susac does not.

Susac hits his first career RBI triple to extend the lead 💥 pic.twitter.com/u32qqTA2pU
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) April 8, 2026

Bailey’s bat is an issue right now, but he’s not the only bat with issues in the order. After Wednesday’s game he had a 1.47 batting average after a 1-for-3 game. But he’s one of the best catchers in the game in terms of defense and pitch framing. He’s already proving that framing still matters in an ABS era and his command of the zone has allowed him to challenge 11 pitchers and overturn five so far.

Susac is a career .280 hitter in the minor leagues who has hit at least 10 home runs in each of his last two seasons. That’s a better average than Bailey’s Major League career (.227), but that’s in the minors. It’s unlikely Susac’s bat will continue to produce at this level. Continuing to use him as a change of pace behind the plate keeps Bailey fresh and allows Susac to make a smooth transition into the Majors.

If anything, using Susac as a DH on off days could help the Giants through this rough patch offensively. That’s worth considering more that siphoning off more playing time from Bailey.