Is Joey Bart for Real? If So, What Does it Mean for the Pirates

8-11-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

It’s easy for a fan base to accept that someone is an answer when they’ve scarcely seen them do anything but look great.

Joey Bart is doing things he’s never done at this level, and he’s doing it at the age of 27.

His age doesn’t make it fake. His past failings don’t make it fake.

That said, a sample size of 170 at bats is hardly hard set cement either. That of course isn’t stopping fans from declaring he’s the “catcher of the future”, or it’s time to trade Henry Davis who in 102 plate appearances during 2024, an even smaller sample size, because he’s completely washed out.

What I’m saying here is, this is exciting, but let’s keep some perspective too. Joey Bart has a lot more bad on his resume than good. In fact, he’s never really done what he’s doing this season in the minors, let alone the Big Stage. He hasn’t had an OPS like this since Rookie Ball in the Giants organization.

Again, a guy figuring it out later in their career or after a change of scenery, that stuff happens. That certainly could be the case here with Joey, it’s not like he doesn’t have the pedigree.

So lets suppose he finishes 2024 strong, what does that look like? I mean, we already established Henry is a bust right? LOL. Seriously though, Henry is still floating around, Endy will be back too, and fans really want to know where this is headed.

Sorry to disappoint but nobody knows. Not Joey, not Henry, nope, Endy is in the dark too.

The Pirates have options here and that’s great. It’s a big reason they were so successful in the Starting Pitching department this year. Redundancies built in give you a chance to take a risk on a guy like Bailey Falter, even while you think guys like Paul Skenes and Jared Jones might be a more likely winning bet.

Henry Davis was a 1:1 selection, Endy Rodriguez was a highly coveted International Free agent in 2018 and Ben Cherington targeted him by way of wrapping the Mets in on a 3 team pact and part of the Joe Musgrove deal.

The Pirates have invested in their catching program, and the one they’ve gotten the most out of including everyone Cherington inherited, traded for or signed via Free Agency is Joey Bart, a guy who was waived by the Giants a mere 5 years after selecting him second overall.

Point being, when you struggle to fill a role, you tend to not be picky about how it winds up filled.

The bats will play. If all three of them hit, they’ll either find a place for all three to hit, or they’ll move someone who fits their needs better.

I wouldn’t be making any of those decisions quite yet. Suffice to say, they have time to let this play out and so long as they get defensive and offensive production they need, it’ll work itself out.

From the moment Endy was acquired, he was the Pirates “Catcher of the Future”, and then they went ahead and drafted a catcher First overall in the draft. Some of those who went all in on Endy as the future took Henry’s pre-draft scouting reports and decided right then and there he wasn’t going to make it as a catcher.

The Pirates did damn near everything they could to make sure that supposition stuck too. They took his injuries early on and his bat pulling him through the system a hell of a lot faster than his glove as a reason to keep him from catching in games. Their vagueness about why Henry couldn’t catch in games might as well have been a Billboard near the Clemente Bridge for some that they drafted a catcher who couldn’t catch.

Now, I know that not to be the case, but they did such a terrible job of explaining the situation, they painted this kid with an air of failure before he had a chance to do it himself. Then he shows up to camp in 2024 expected to share duties with Endy and fresh off working all Winter to make sure the next time he got an opportunity, the Pirates and anyone else for that matter wouldn’t be able to say he wasn’t ready or capable of catching.

Thing is, he did, even as he was forced into a hell of a lot more than part time duty. We all know Endy was injured and the Pirates brought in veteran Yasmani Grandal, a guy who hasn’t had a healthy season since Obama was in office and didn’t start the season that way either.

Davis wasn’t great behind the plate, but he was playable. For a rookie, that’s not the end of the world back there, for a team chalk full of young pitchers who need veteran guidance back there, it would have been better if he was better, obviously.

Still, he did the job. If his bat could have said the same, meaning hit enough to stick the team probably never acquires Joey Bart.

And here we are.

As to what Bart is doing, when it comes to catchers carrying a volume of duty for their team, only William Contreras and his .869 OPS can best Bart’s .854. 10 homeruns in 150 plate appearances is a crazy homerun every 6.66 chances.

Is it sustainable? Who knows. But any team who wouldn’t want to see more is probably crazy.

This position is a mystery, and it’ll be surrounded by intrigue all off season, hell, probably all next season for that matter.

It’s also not a mystery we need to solve right now.

You don’t need to convince yourself any of the 3 will fail or succeed. You just need to know not one of these players has done enough to tell you who they are, not truly. All three could be on this team in 2025, and all three could contribute. We could see Bart behind the dish, Henry DH and Endy at First Base.

Or we could see Henry make the most of Endy having to take his time working back in and Bart backsliding a bit to really grab it for himself. Heck we could still be kind of wondering where all these guys fit going into 2026, even if they all wield bats we want to see.

I for one am grateful they probably have enough to not bring in another decrepit veteran. If they just want a defensive specialist type, they still have Jason Delay hanging around, even if it is eminently likely they’ll DFA him this Winter.

If it makes you feel good to call the race for Pirates starting catcher of the future right now, ok, just know, it’s been 3 different guys in the past 3 seasons.

Baseball is an incredibly difficult sport to predict. That’s a big part of the fun.

One thing is for sure, thank God when Joey Bart became available this year the Pirates “dumpster dove” as so many of you love to quip, or their playoff dreams would have ended long before this stretch of losses.

And they might have just found someone very important to the overall effort well beyond this season too.

Fluke or not, everyone involved has seen enough at this point to go into next year hoping it might be there again.

Good luck to all involved.