The Giants select NC State catcher Patrick Bailey with the 13th pick. If you wonder why the Giants would draft a catcher two years out of three you should take a look at the career arc of catchers! If I were running a ball club I would platoon at catcher. Never let a guy catch more than 100 games in a season, even better max him out at 81. Catching is too important and you can't expect guys to take that much physical abuse. MLB streamed the draft live for free, and the goddamn thing is a hideous spectacle, but I had to tune in--briefly--just to see what the Giants did.
Welcome aboard, Patrick!
--M.C.
3 comments:
According to FZ:
You don't draft for need, or perceived need. And you can never have too much catching.
Hard to argue with that. Consider too that the NL will have the DH soon and thus the "problem" of having too many good hitters at one position goes away!
It takes a few years to find out if draft picks will make an impact in the big leagues. People a lot smarter than me and with a hell of a lot more time, energy, and resources get paid a lot to decide which young fellow and the heaping pile of young fellows will turn out to be the best ballplayers. All I can do is report on who they get.
And I think I like this guy--he's a switch-hitter! And he's only 21.
I meant to say "among" the heaping pile of fellows.
From Andrew Baggarly on The Athletic:
While the Giants didn’t talk of teaching Bailey to play other positions, Zaidi is known to fetishize versatility, and so the thought of a switch-hitting catcher with the athleticism to fill in elsewhere on the diamond represents an ideal investment. Zaidi said the possibility of the designated hitter arriving in the National League was a consideration as well. And while Bart is a much more physical presence who is perceived to be on the cusp of the major leagues, the Giants would like him to learn other positions as well.
“Multiple positions will be a theme for us,” Zaidi said. “The demands of the (catching) position are so great. Having that versatility speaks aspirationally for what we want the roster to look like.”
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