With Pirates catcher Endy Rodríguez on the IL for the next few weeks with a lacerated index finger, former No. 1 overall pick Henry Davis has earned his chance to make a difference for the Pirates.
Two Pitt News sports desk writers have differing ideas about the importance of this stretch for Davis, if he plays well.
Point: The Pirates need Davis to play well in this stretch to boost his trade value
Let’s get straight to the point — Henry Davis was a bad No. 1 overall selection for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
It was a well-managed selection because they selected him on a cheaper deal and would not have been able to convince the Pirates’ top prospect, Bubba Chandler, to sign with the team without the leftover money he let the Pirates have.
But the Davis pick itself was bad because he has not played well at all for the Pirates thus far. Davis has a career .189 average and .583 career OPS, both substandard numbers, especially for a No. 1 overall selection. With that said, if Davis plays well in the next few weeks, the Pirates have to use that as ammunition to trade him.
The Pirates desperately need an outfielder. Tommy Pham, who has a .149 batting average so far this season, cannot play every day. So, how do the Pirates get themselves away from this disgraceful outfield? They trade a former No. 1 overall selection catcher to a catcher-needy team for an outfielder prospect who is ready to play immediately.
Pittsburgh already has a catcher who can play four of every five days in Joey Bart, so Davis’ playing time already takes a hit there. Then Rodríguez can play first base and catch, which makes him far more appealing as a backup.
Davis will just rot on the bench or get sent down to Triple-A once Rodríguez gets back from the IL, even if he gets hot. The Pirates could send Davis to the outfield, as they did in 2023, but he wasn’t effective there, since he had -6 outs above average.
Oneil Cruz is currently learning how to play in the outfield himself. The Pirates simply cannot have two outfielders who have little to no experience out there. So, sending Davis to the outfield would create yet another issue that the Pirates do not need.
The Pirates need Davis to get hot, not because they can finally be proven right with their selection in 2021, but to have a valuable trade asset that they can use to supplement their outfield.
Counterpoint: If Davis gets hot, the last thing they should do is trade him / Alex Kiger, Senior Staff Writer
Henry Davis is trying to finally figure things out as a big leaguer. The Pirates took the 25-year-old as their first overall pick back in 2021 and started the year with him in Triple-A, but got a promotion to Pittsburgh after the injury bug bit backup catcher Endy Rodríguez.
Davis has massively underwhelmed in his limited major league action. In his 106 total games, Davis has slashed .189/.276/.307. However, those numbers are mostly held up from his first season in the bigs. From 2024 until now, Davis is slashing .145/.229/.226 in 44 games.
While he is far from alone in having offensive struggles with this team, his status as a former first overall pick will haunt him unless he finds a way to pan out. This season, he is 3-for-20 with one home run and a pair of RBIs.
But even if Davis does finally figure it out and unlock the power that the Pirates saw when they drafted him, they absolutely should not trade him.
Sure, a former first overall pick finally showing some success, still under cheap control and in his mid-20s, could entice another team, but the Pirates desperately need somebody to start hitting the ball, no matter who it is.
This Pirates lineup is completely devoid of offense. As a team, they are slashing .206/.289/.320 on the year so far. All of those numbers are the top six worst marks in baseball. They have 10 players — Davis included — on the active roster who are currently batting under the league average of .231.
If anyone on this team catches lightning in a bottle and starts to hit, the Pirates cannot do anything to lose that player.
But honestly, this argument to keep Davis is only half about the player. The other half is about the man who drafted him, general manager Ben Cherington.
Since taking over the Pirates in November 2019, his trade history is riddled with mistakes, and opposing teams have consistently swindled him. If Davis wound up having some trade value, I simply do not trust Cherington to execute a deal that sees the Pirates get anything of value back.
Nearly every trade Cherington has made involving a big-name player has seen the Pirates on the short end of the deal. With his luck, Davis would finally turn into the power-hitting catcher that the Pirates dreamed of him becoming here in Pittsburgh.
If Davis gets hot, keep him.
The post Point-Counterpoint | What the Pirates should do with Henry Davis if he gets hot appeared first on The Pitt News.