A Free Agent Signing & Another Lost to Injury

12-13-23 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

Two stories broke yesterday. One, the Pirates signed a free agent, Rowdy Tellez. I’ll circle back to this, but nothing much changed from what I wrote two Monday’s ago in 5 Thoughts.

The second nugget is a much more somber note. Endy Rodriguez has had UCL/Tommy John Surgery and will miss all of 2024.

I’m going to write about both here together, because when things happen right next to each other, there automatically tends to be an immediate measuring of what went out vs what came in. In a situation like this, that of course isn’t fair, it’s not like Endy was traded for Tellez, but functionally, there’s no way to avoid the in vs out nature of these two things happening at the same time.

Deflating to say the least, potentially on both counts.

Let’s start with Tellez.

OK, I don’t expect you to click back and see what I wrote, but I’ll sum it up, he had a lot of success in 2022, he hasn’t been in great shape and he’s a meh first baseman. Let’s move the ball forward now that the signing has happened.

First things first, I’m not sure what they think Tellez will be here. Yes, he can play first base. I’m just not sure what they plan. He signed for 3.2 million with incentives that could bring it up to 4. Even for the Pirates, that hasn’t been starting first baseman money. I mean, just last year they brought in 3 players to fill the position (Santana, Joe, Choi). Carlos for 6.75 million, Joe 735K, and Choi for 4.65 million. That’s 12.135 million to fill the first base position in 2023, and I find it hard to believe in a year where they claim to be trying harder, this will be the stopping point.

If this is it for first base, I can’t say I’m satisfied. If this is just a guy to add depth at first base and off the bench or even as a DH, I actually kinda like it. Thing is, I don’t see Tellez as a guy who should see many left handed pitchers. This is as clear a platoon player as you’ll find.

Essentially, if you think back to last year, the Pirates traded for Choi and we all assumed OK, we have our first baseman, even as almost nobody saw it as good enough. Then they proceeded to get Joe, who had been little more than a replacement level player, and then Santana who of course had a track record, but also nearly qualifies for AARP.

Point is, we were just as ready to label their first acquisition as the nailed on starter last year, and he played 23 total games for the Pirates. Injury of course helped write that story, but the point is the Pirates were much more prepared at first base than signing one journeyman platoon player for 3 million bucks which leads me to believe they’ll not consider the position “filled”. OK, I’ll give you whatever Joe winds up costing too, which looks like 2 Million. So I’ll give you 5 for the position, I think my point stands.

Again, unless they feel they have an internal answer, and if I’m running a club trying to win, I don’t think there is one. Maybe someone you let work their way into it, but not someone I’d just hand it to.

Triolo will come up, and I don’t hate it the way many do, but listen to my latest podcast and see what you think about Jared as an option there. I won’t say we put him on blast, but BABIP rarely lies, at least it doesn’t to the degree it would have to in order for me to be sold on Jared at the moment. Need to see a bit more at least before considering him a 1B fixture. There are some swing changes the team made that should they take hold, yeah, you’ll swing me in that direction pretty easy, but 2024 can’t be all about hope.

OK, Endy time.

This hurts.

But it hurts more for the delay in this kid potentially becoming what we hoped he could, not because we’ve lost someone who took the league by the balls in 2023.

Initially he’s being spoken about like we just lost Buster Posey after the Series Win. A good team wouldn’t even consider him a lock to start, and yes, I mean that. Even given their situation, at the very least the team owed it to themselves and Henry Davis to make the Spring competition a real one.

Here’s why.

Endy laid this down after his call up, which followed a lackluster offensive season in AAA too. Numbers we’ve excused by way of accounting for all the hard work defensively. There’s some truth there for sure, but facts are facts, he struggled at the plate last year.

57 games, 204 plate appearances, a .220 average, OPS of .612.

As I’ve said before, with rookies, I’m not married to numbers. I’ll take growth, flashes, signs, anything. For me, here’s how I describe Endy’s 2023 season as a whole.

Endy fully transitioned to catching in 2023, and that’s a load that takes some time to understand how to carry. His bat showed all the signs of being transformative in AA, but in AAA, he looked overmatched, if not a bit “sloppy” mechanically at the dish. Which is 100% not him, it’s not what he’s been, what we’ve seen, and I think that’s why it’s so easy to give him points if you will for how much focus he paid to defense and not to training as a switch hitter which I’ve had one such batter describe to me as making two omelets with two skillets at the same time and having them both look the same. Knowing his focus was on defense, I’m encouraged he showed such marked improvement in that area. Was hoping 2024 would be where he starts knowing more and learning less so he has time to focus on the offensive side of the game. Now I think we’ll watch Henry experience some of what Endy did last year.

Folks, if you didn’t already have yourself sold on Endy from his time in the minors, in fact, imagine the Pirates just acquired a guy from Detroit with these exact same numbers and all the exact same scouting reports on him. Are you happily handing him the starting catcher role to start 2024 and acting like Ben Cherington is a genius?

Please don’t take this as me telling you Endy stinks, or I’m ok with his injury. It ain’t like that ok? What I’m saying is, you’re upset at the loss of what you hoped his potential would translate to in 2024, me too, but I can’t sit here in front of this laptop and tell you he would have. I hope he does, I want him to, I’m sad I won’t get to see that until 2025 and if Henry does what we now have to hope he does, who knows if Catching is even on the table when he comes back.

I really mean this, Endy, if everything goes right will be back sometime close to a month before next Spring Training. Meaning the Spring before 2025. After a full year of Henry likely playing 3/4 of the season (god willing, it’s not like he’s been healthy), well, who’s to say Endy is displacing the Pirates 1:1 selection. It could also work as a nice shelter for him to warm to the task instead of being nailed on counted on too, which might be important.

I’ll play this out further. Let’s say Henry stinks. It’s not what I think, it’s just a possibility we can’t discount until we see otherwise, well, then we get to that same Spring and now we’re looking at a guy who couldn’t get established in a full season, and one who hasn’t played in a year, and never got himself established in MLB either.

Just to illustrate something I think people miss. Had this injury happened to him last year before he debuted, suddenly he returns to AAA, and now as a 23 year old, recovering from injury, working to get back an impressive arm that helped mask a bunch of defensive warts. Before you know it, he’s 24, just debuting or maybe waiting for his chance and most of us kinda shrug about losing that potential star. Thing is, had he not debuted, and this injury derailed his promotion to the league, he goes from hot shot prospect to “long in the tooth” prospect to some almost overnight through no fault of his own.

This happens to kids all the time. In Endy’s case, for him, it’s really best he’s already a Major Leaguer.

The perception of Endy is better than what Endy has actually done. Again, I don’t say that to paint this as no big loss, I say it because being 100% honest, we lost potential, not something we should have been counting on, just hoping for with a lot of evidence it’s a good bet.

ALL of that said, what an opportunity for Henry Davis. There’s no way to see this aside from Davis has no excuse to not take the catcher position. There’s no alternative phenom there, there’s no big prospect behind him. It’s the position he wants to play and regardless of anything that happened with Hank last year, the turkey is on the table. That can’t be denied. If he can’t hit and field well enough behind the dish to be a starter on a team with Jason Delay and Ali Sanchez, chances are you won’t want him as a DH either. A big year for Davis, just became gigantic, and for shits and giggles the safety net has just been removed.

If Davis fails, they likely have no choice but to acquire a veteran catcher to start 2025. To work through both these guys, injuries aside cause nobody will forgive them for it anyway, and not come out of it with 1 being a starting MLB catcher, in my mind might make or break this rebuild, well, that and how much of the rotation they can develop this year.

More to come I’m sure.