After a month at Triple-A Indianapolis, former first overall pick Henry Davis is headed back to the majors, as Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (X link) reports that the Pirates are calling Davis up in advance of their next game on Tuesday against the Dodgers. The corresponding move isn’t yet known, but it seems likely that backup catcher Grant Koch will be optioned to Triple-A a few days after making his big league debut.
Davis, the first overall pick of the 2021 draft, hit .213/.302/.351 over 255 plate appearances after making his MLB debut last season. Davis only played as a catcher in two games during his rookie season, but headed into 2024 slated for a heavier workload behind the plate once fellow rookie catcher Endy Rodriguez underwent season-ending UCL surgery during the offseason. Injuries to Yasmani Grandal and Jason Delay further cleared the path for more playing time for Davis at catcher, but the struggles continued both offensively and defensively.
Pitch-framing remains an issue for Davis, and the Defensive Runs Saved metric rates him a -2 based on his 184 1/3 innings at catcher this season. With the bat, Davis has hit only .162/.280/.206, and struck out in 29 of his 83 plate appearances.
The decision was made on May 3 to send Davis to Indianapolis for more seasoning, and Davis has responded by hitting .286/.433/.649 with seven home runs over 97 PA. While Davis torched minor league pitching during his initial trip up the Pirates’ pipeline, it should be noted that Davis had only 63 PA at Triple-A when the Bucs first promoted him last season. It could be that he was simply brought up a bit too soon, even if Davis also might’ve forced the Pirates’ hand by looking like he had little left to prove in the minors.
Delay just started a minor league rehab assignment, so while he is eligible to be activated from the 60-day IL later this week, he’ll need quite a bit of time to get ramped up after missing almost the entire season due to meniscus surgery. Joey Bart was also just placed on the 10-day IL with a thumb injury, while Grandal is healthy but has struggled badly at the plate. With this lack of depth and Davis’ overall import as a cornerstone of Pittsburgh’s rebuild, he should have plenty of runway for playing time as the team’s regular catcher. Andrew McCutchen has the everyday DH spot pretty well covered, so while Davis could conceivably get some more work as an outfielder if the Pirates are looking for ways to get his bat into the lineup, the likeliest scenario is that Grandal just moves into a backup role.