Henry Davis has had a wild start to his professional baseball career, from being selected number one overall, to being one of the fastest number one overall selections to come up to the big league level, to being sent down to AAA in May.
Now, Davis appears to be coming back for his second stint with the Pirates, and it begs the question, what has he done in AAA and what impact does it have that he’s returning?
Since his May 3 option, Davis has torn the cover off the baseball with AAA Indianapolis, posting a 1.078 OPS with 7 HR and 17 RBI, including a home-run for Indianapolis in their game versus Omaha on Saturday.
As far as the bigs are concerned for Davis, he departed the big league club with a .162 batting average and a .486 OPS, collecting a mere 4 RBIs in 68 total at-bats. He also had a 31-percent strikeout rate, a 34.6-percent whiff rate and a xBA of .182, so his option was warranted.
Take the strikeout rate, whiff rate and xBA into account, and he’s improved all of those in his short time in AAA, and some, with his strikeout rate down to 12.8-percent, his whiff rate down to 26.9-percent and his xBA up from that terrible .182 clip to a solid .400 clip with the Indians.
Now, over the course of his time in the minors, Davis has had considerable success, posting a career .968 OPS in the minor leagues over 515 at-bats. Compare that to a career .201 batting average in the bigs, and things get dicey.
There is not doubting Davis has the work ethic and talent to be a solid MLB catcher, hell most of us were worried about his defense and upon his departure, he had a 100, yes 100-percent block rate behind the plate.
One of the bigger obstacles offensively that Davis has to overcome will be hitting MLB fastballs, something he’s struggled with in both seasons he’s played with the Bucs. In 2023, he had a .234 batting-average against fastballs, which isn’t all that bad, but could be better. So far in 2024, that number has dipped considerably to a .149 clip, and it doesn’t make it much better that his batting average is worse against breaking pitches, coming in at a .133 clip.
Going to AAA was about two things for Davis. One, making the needed adjustments at the plate that were likely pointed out by himself and the team and two, and arguably more important, getting his confidence back and proving to himself that he could hit a baseball again.
Over the last week, we’ve seen the Pirates field Yasmani Grandal and Grant Koch as their catchers, and the results are about what you would expect from the duo, especially the latter. With Jason Delay nearing an end to his rehab assignment and Joey Bart on the IL for some time, it’s time for Davis to return and show the team what he has improved on over the past month.
The hope is Davis returns and proves himself offensively, and if he does, the Pirates are back in business behind the plate. If he doesn’t, questions will continue to rise about how the Pirates should continue to handle their number one overall selection from 2022.
Nevertheless, Davis is back, and after some much needed time in AAA, a breakthrough has to happen eventually, you just hope it happens sooner rather than later and positively benefits a Pirates team that has been on the cusp of nearing a .500 record for a few weeks now. Welcome back, Henry Davis, go get ’em.
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