In his first full season in the Majors, Patrick Bailey was the best defensive catcher in baseball and should be rewarded for it come November.
2024 stats: 121 G, 448 PA, .234/ .298/ .339/ .637, 81 wRC+, -9.7 Offense, 36.7 Defense, 4.3 fWAR
If all things are true and just and fair and pure and right in this world, Patrick Bailey will win his first Gold Glove Award when winners are announced on November 3rd.
Bailey led all catchers in the Majors with 20 Defensive Runs Saved by a healthy margin (Gabriel Moreno’s 10 DRS was second). His 22 Fielding Run Value led all defensive players period. In this new-fangled world of one-knee catching Bailey is the bee’s knee.
In his first full year, the San Francisco Giants backstop excelled at everything behind the dish—blocking be damned.
His 9 CS Above-Average (a Savant metric) is second only to Will Smith’s 10, which along with his 1.83 pop time (97th percentile) helped control the running game — a necessity with the underwater windups of Logan Webb and Camilo Doval on the mound. In terms of framing, Bailey could franchise a Michael’s location. His 16 Catcher Framing Runs (another Savant metric) paced the Majors.
Patrick Bailey is #1 on Baseball Savant’s Pitch Framing Leaderboard and it checks out. All of these were called strikes. pic.twitter.com/OMFJtfcdns
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) July 27, 2024
That kind of cross-the-board dominance is rare. Smith, another Gold Glove finalist, handled base-stealers better than anybody, but statistically ranks as the worst framer and one of the worst blockers in baseball. Somewhat odd given that it’s usually one or the other. Based on Savant metrics, Danny Jensen was the best blocking catcher in baseball in 2024; he ranked in the 21st percentile in terms of pitch-framing. Moreno won the Gold Glove last year based on his talents blocking and controlling the running game — his framing ranked in the 32nd percentile. Bailey grades poorly as a blocker because he’s so concerned with receiving pitches in a way that sells strikes.
No matter how frustrated it makes John Smoltz, this is how things are done now. A catcher isn’t just a meat wall for pitchers to pelt anymore. This development has been a long time coming, ever since Johnny Bench chose common sense over injury and tucked his throwing hand behind his back. Catchers are artists, performers, salesmen and con men. Stopping a 98 MPH fastball dead in its tracks isn’t a subtle thing. It’s blunt-force trauma, and it’s a catcher’s job to somehow receive that impact with finesse, to pin it to a corner or drop it down a fraction of a seam. The difference between a low splitter called a ball or a strike; the difference between a 2-1 count or 1-2 count is perhaps the greatest swing in this game of swings.
Framing matters. It can change an at-bat, an inning, a game, a week, a season, a life… At the very least, it’s a valuable skill to boast (until our ABS Overlords take over, of course), as well as a marketable one that you know the Giants last Gold Glove winning catcher is going to push. Humans are a vain bunch, and pitchers are the worst of ‘em — they want to throw to someone who will make them look good. Bailey is the Men’s Warehouse of catchers. A strip mall of talents. Free agent arms want to work with this guy.
Funnily enough, Bailey made pitchers look pretty good standing at the plate too.
For two months during the summer of 2024, Patrick Bailey was the worst offensive player in baseball. Across July and August, Bailey was a shirt on a clothesline when it came to hitting. A broken air conditioning unit. The third Godfather movie. A summer to forget. Bailey scrounged together a measly on-base percentage and a paltry slugging to compile a dinky a .409 OPS and a 17 wRC+ — the lowest marks in baseball (min. 120 PA) during those months. In August, he managed just a .168 OPS and a -55 wRC+. The next lowest wRC+ mark that month was the Angels’ Logan O’Hoppe at -7. In 67 plate appearances, Bailey collected just four hits: three singles and a double. He walked twice, recorded one sacrifice fly and two runs batted-in.
It was the second time in two years Bailey fell off a cliff offensively. On one hand, an understandable-if-regrettable trend given the demands exacted upon a catcher; also somewhat palatable considering Bailey is still getting acclimated to those demands over a full season. On the other hand … oof, the slump was bad. Reeeeeeeeeealllllllyyyyyy bad. Brett Phillips bad. And a stark contrast to his first half numbers when he hit .283 with a .784 OPS and 124 wRC+. He had improved on the bat control of his debut campaign, while striking out less and walking more. Bailey also authored some of the signature offensive moments of the season for the Giants: launching an 8th inning grand slam off New York reliever Reed Garrett in the midst of a wild week in May; or his walk-off 3-run homer against Pittsburgh.
Bailey intentionally added some winter weight to combat the strain of the long season and help his body with durability. It worked to a certain degree: Bailey had never caught as many games in a season as this year, nor did his defense ever waver. His average exit velocity and hard-hit rate also jumped, and he ended the year on upswing with the bat. An article from Maria Guardado seemed to suggest Bailey felt like the slump was less about fatigue and more about pregame routines and replicating that practiced approach during at-bats. Basically, adjustments. Batting is quite literally hitting a moving target, but that truth applies to approach as well. In order to limit slumps, one has to be willing to try and apply new things when conditions change.
The defensive maturity Bailey displays belies the fact that his career is still pretty green. He’s only got a little over a season’s worth of plate appearances under his belt which explains some of the inconsistencies, be it the summer fall off, or the varying switch-hitting splits (his right-side was much stronger in 2023, his left stronger in 2024). The offense will improve. The highs will hopefully stay consistent, it’s just about limiting the lows.
Honestly, though, whatever he does with a bat is gravy in my book. Watching Bailey still frame a pitch while sliding out from behind home plate as a runner breaks from first, transferring the baseball to his throwing hand like a middle infielder, slinging it down to second, nabbing Elly de la Cruz, Shohei Ohtani, Corbin Carroll — it’s just a blessing.
Who cares if his bat isn’t silver? He’s got a gold glove…or he should soon.