Like Casey Schmitt before him, Patrick Bailey is taking the MLB by storm.
In his first nine games with the Giants, the former first-round pick is turning heads, and not just with his work behind the dish. Check out these numbers:
On Sunday, Bailey was a beast, accounting for four RBI and a two-run homer.
Bailey has hit the ground running, and it begs the question as to why nobody was talking about Bailey as a contributor to the big league club last offseason. Duane Kuiper thinks part of the reason was that everyone has been focused on Joey Bart since he was selected with the No. 2 overall pick in 2018.
“Our focus was all on Joey Bart, rightfully so, and the build-up and he was the No. 2 pick,” Kuiper told Murph & Mac on Tuesday. “And we wanted this to be the next Buster Posey, and none of that was fair to him, at all. Even his first call-up was probably too premature, but it was out of necessity.
“Patrick Bailey, did he get lost in the shuffle a little bit? Well if you’re not putting up gaudy numbers, you probably do. But the one thing that never changed if you talked to the Giants baseball people, was his ability to catch and call a game. You can hit .220, and he scuffled like you said in the minor leagues, but the one thing that didn’t change was his ability to do what he does behind the plate. And what he does offensively, let’s hope it’s terrific.”
Bailey wasn’t exactly tearing things up at Single-A Eugene last season, slashing .225/.342/.420 in 83 games. It’s for that reason that many didn’t think he’d find his way all the way up to San Francisco this season.
Even still, people always knew he was an excellent receiver behind the dish.
“But the way he’s going to stay in the big leagues and play every day is how he handles a staff,” Kuiper said. “We watched how he handled [Anthony] DeSclafani yesterday with the pitch com or whatever the heck they call it. A 24-year-old going out to calm down a veteran, that usually doesn’t happen.”
All the talk is about Bailey with Bart on the Injured List, but Kuiper doesn’t think we should give up on him either.
“I think he was under the radar a little bit, but that’s only because there was a higher ceiling that we all thought for the kid that was right above him,” Kuiper said. “And you know what, Joey Bart, people shouldn’t forget about that guy, because he’s a young guy that’s got a lot of talent. He’s just got to get it rolling and he can continue to roll.”
Listen to the full interview above. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch Murph & Mac weekdays from 6 – 10 a.m. on KNBR 104.5 / 680 and streaming live on KNBR.com.