Giants Trade Patrick Bailey to Guardians as Buster Posey Shakes It up Again

In his first three seasons, Patrick Bailey carved a niche as one of the game’s top defensive catchers, dominating the Statcast defensive leaderboards and winning two Gold Gloves. The development of his offense has lagged, however, and with the Giants struggling to score runs and sporting one of the majors’ worst records, they’ve decide they can live without Bailey’s glovework. On Saturday, they traded the 27-year-old backstop to the Guardians for 23-year-old lefty pitching prospect Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson and a Competitive Balance pick in the upcoming draft.

This is the second season in a row that president of baseball operations Buster Posey has shaken up San Francisco’s roster with an early-season trade; last year, it was the mid-June acquisition of slugger Rafael Devers in a blockbuster with Boston. You don’t have to squint too hard to accept that both trades were aimed at upgrading moribund offenses, but when the Giants dealt for Devers, they were 11 games above .500 (41-30), one game behind the Dodgers in the NL West. They felt they’d landed the offensive cornerstone that had eluded them after unsuccessful pursuits of Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, a player who could help them return to the postseason for the first time since 2021. This time around, they entered the day of the trade 15-23, last in the division, and the move appears far more tilted toward the future, as Wilkinson has just gotten his feet wet in Double-A and the draft pick won’t make an immediate impact.

If this trade had occurred just prior to the deadline (August 3 this year), it might have been characterized as a white flag, part of a larger selloff. To these eyes, it’s a shakeup that at worst smacks of panic and at best places a lot of faith that Posey — a likely Hall of Fame catcher who has yet to show similar prowess as an executive — has found a diamond or two in the rough with his two recent catching acquisitions: Jesus Rodriguez, who came from the Yankees in last year’s Camilo Doval trade, and Daniel Susac, who was flipped by the Twins in December after being plucked from the A’s as a Rule 5 pick. Both are 24 years old and have fewer than 10 games of major league experience, with Susac, who turns 25 on May 14, currently on a rehab assignment after being sidelined by neuritis in his right elbow. Eric Haase, a 33-year-old backstop who hit his way out of a starting job in Detroit in 2023, started in Saturday’s 13-3 drubbing by the Pirates — San Francisco’s ninth loss in 11 games — while Rodriguez started Sunday’s 7-6 win, which lifted the team’s record to 16-24, still third worst in the NL.

Undeniably, the Giants aren’t in great shape. They’re last in the majors in runs per game (3.25) and walk rate (5.5%, 2.2 points below the 29th-ranked Diamondbacks), in a virtual tie for last in on-base percentage with the Mets (.287), and second to last in wRC+ (84). The switch-hitting Bailey was helping to drag the offense down, hitting just .146/.213/.183 in 89 plate appearances. Including his 0-for-3 in Sunday’s debut for the Guardians (a 5-4 loss to the Twins), his 13 wRC+ is ahead of only the Reds’ Ke’Bryan Hayes (12 wRC+) for the majors’ lowest among the 260 hitters with at least 90 plate appearances.

With a career line of .230/.287/.340 entering 2026, Bailey was by no means a good hitter. His 76 wRC+ from 2023–25 placed in the eighth percentile among players with at least 600 plate appearances, but within that group, he was the only one to produce at least 10.0 WAR (10.2) in that span despite a wRC+ below 100.

Relative to last season, Bailey has made adjustments to his swing and his stance on both sides of the plate. His swing has less tilt, his attack angle has decreased, and most noticeably, he’s closed his stance while batting left-handed (from 11 degrees open to zero), and opened it up extremely while batting right-handed (from eight degrees open to 25 degrees open). From both sides, he’s swinging harder, with his overall fast swing rate nearly doubling, from 15.8% overall to 29.5% and his current averages of 72.7 mph from the left and 73.3 mph from the right both up over one mph from last year. But while he’s hit the ball harder as his swing rate, chase rate, whiff rate, and strikeout rate have all decreased (the last down from a career-high 29.4% to 25.0%), he’s not getting much bang for his buck:

Bailey’s expected numbers have improved over last season, though they’re short of his marks from 2023 and ’24. The gaps between his actual and expected numbers are second only to Hayes’ in all three categories. At least some of that owes to the fact that Bailey’s overall groundball rate has spiked from 38.5% to 46.7%, more than offsetting his increased pull rate (from 33.2% to 38.2%), because he’s not elevating those balls. His pulled air rate has dropped from 17.1% to 13.3%, while his pulled groundball rate has risen from 16.1% to 25.0%.

Defensively, Bailey remains elite. He currently leads the majors in FRV (6) and Statcast’s version of framing runs (5), something he’s done annually since debuting in 2023. His 83 FRV and 69 Statcast framing runs since the start of that season are both 32 more than the second-ranked Alejandro Kirk. By our metrics, his 63.7 FRM is nearly as far ahead of his new backup in Cleveland, Austin Hedges (34.7), and his 54 DRS (the non-framing version) is 12 more than second-ranked Freddy Fermin. That defensive prowess has made Bailey the majors’ fifth-most valuable catcher overall from 2023–26, behind only Cal Raleigh, William Contreras, Will Smith, and Adley Rutschman, all of whom contribute significantly more than Bailey on offense.

As Posey’s first spring training at the helm began in February 2025, according to The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly, he emphasized that Bailey’s statistical dominance wasn’t enough. “Honestly, my focus in that conversation was, ‘Patty, first and foremost, your responsibility is to lead the staff… And that’s not just framing metrics or how many runners you’re throwing out. It’s truly to lead the staff.’ That’s where I want his focus to be,” said Posey at the time.

The Giants reportedly mulled the possibility of new manager Tony Vitello calling pitches from the dugout as he did at Tennessee, and as the Marlins are doing this season. Bailey was not a fan of the idea, and wasn’t alone among Giants who pushed back. Staff ace Logan Webb, who was one of the players against the idea, praised Bailey’s preparation and game-calling, and even Vitello expressed reservations about whether it would work.

Still, Baggarly pointed to a couple of incidents in an April 30 doubleheader sweep by the Phillies where Bailey’s game-calling particularly backfired. He called nine consecutive sinkers from Ryan Walker to Bryson Stott in the opener, the last of which was hit for a game-tying triple, and called seven consecutive splitters from Keaton Winn to Kyle Schwarber in the nightcap, the last of which was hit for a game-tying double. The Phillies walked off San Francisco in both games, with Stott scoring the winning run in the opener.

The Giants may have something with their two young catchers, despite their inexperience. Both the Yankees, who signed Rodriguez out of Venezuela in 2018, and the Giants, who acquired him along with three other prospects in a July 31 trade for Doval, have used him in a utility capacity; last year, between Double-A Somerset and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Sacramento, he hit a combined .307/.393/.403 (118 wRC+) while catching 60 games and playing 23 at third base. This year at Sacramento, he caught 16 games, played left field for five — something he did 12 times at High-A Hudson Valley in 2024 — and second base for two. He debuted in the majors last Monday, and hit his first home run on Tuesday as part of a 2-for-3 night against the Padres; he went 2-for-3 again on Wednesday while starting in right field. Last year, he received a 40+ FV grade from our prospect team as a third baseman while being described as “incredibly raw at all facets of catching,” but Eric Longenhagen’s latest report suggests Rodriguez has continued to improve and might be a 45 FV:

This is an exceptionally quick athlete with below-average pure arm strength who too frequently fumbles his exchange. That’s something one could reasonably project Rodriguez to do. To the eye, he’s an above-average framer and a source had him at +4 framing runs all of last year in just 60 games because he was also playing other positions. Though his throwing needs polish and his ball-blocking (below average, lots of long rebounds) might be limited by his lack of size, framing is the most important skill of the three, and Rodriguez could end up being really good at it. Great timing, deft hands, and plus barrel feel spearhead a plus-contact skillset despite below-average bat speed, power, and plate discipline.

Rodriguez has a funky stance and big movements in the batter’s box, but he tracks pitches really well, his hands tend to find the baseball, and he ends up spraying all kinds of line drive contact into play. Were he not so chase prone, this would be the kind of player who’d project to outhit his raw power in games, as his feel for the barrel is very good. This is where I think the statistical projections are a little off base, in assuming Rodriguez’s plate discipline (he has tended to run double-digit walk rates) will translate. His more granular chase data (32% overall, 51% with two strikes, 40% against breaking balls) is not so bad to worry that he will end up struggling to the degree that Keibert Ruiz has, but I think he’s more likely to be a .250/.310/.350-type hitter than the .275/.335/.375 one ZiPS thinks he is.

Longenhagen also provided a supercut of Rodriguez’s recent framing:

Susac, the 19th pick of the 2022 draft, is a 40-FV prospect who hit .275/.349/.483 (94 wRC+) with 18 homers at Triple-A Las Vegas last year. Brendan Gawlowski wrote about him when he was taken in the Rule 5 draft last December:

The Athletics’ first-rounder out of Arizona back in 2022, Susac was seen as a high-floor selection at the time due to his ability to catch. He has good hands, reportedly works well with the staff, and should be at least an average defensive catcher. The bat hasn’t come along at all, though. Despite decent surface-level stats, Susac is overly aggressive, and his slow bat and surround-the-ball swing are unlikely to translate well against elite arms. He projects as a backup or third catcher depending on how much you like the defense. Might a family connection have played a role? Susac is the younger brother of Andrew Susac, who was Giants GM Buster Posey’s backup at one point.

Susac homered twice for Sacramento as a designated hitter on Thursday and caught seven innings on Sunday in his first rehab appearance behind the plate. He could return at some point this week.

As for the Giants’ return, the Vancouver-born Wilkinson is a 45-FV prospect who lists at 6-foot-1 and 250 pounds and has the delightful nickname “Tugboat” thanks to “a slow-moving ‘heater’ that’s pulling his entire profile,” as our prospect team wrote in January. A 10th-round pick in 2023 out of Central Arizona College, he posted a 4.24 ERA, a 4.17 FIP, and a 26.2% strikeout rate in 104 innings last season at High-A Lake County. In 28 1/3 innings at Double-A Akron this year, he ran a 1.59 ERA and a 2.61 FIP with a 33.6% strikeout rate. Here’s some recent video:

And Longenhagen’s update:

He’s still sitting 90, but his heater continues to play like an elite pitch, generating a 37% miss rate (including his WBC outings for Team Canada) so far this year. Because the Guardians promoted him pretty conservatively, it’s been tough to know how his fastball would do against good hitters, but between the WBC and now six Double-A starts, it sure looks like it’s going to. He’s going to be able to pitch backwards off backdoor sliders and elevate his fastball to finish guys off, and the same mechanical looseness that helps hide his fastball will do the same for his changeup. It’s not as if they’ve traded the next Parker Messick (Tugboat’s changeup quality isn’t quite that good), but some of the deceptive elements and style of athleticism (this is a husky guy, but he’s super mobile) are the same. If the fact that he sits 90 turns out to be a problem against big league hitters — which will remain a possibility until Wilkinson proves it’s not — then I still think we’re looking at a Yusmeiro Petit-type long reliever. More likely, Wilkinson looks like a good team’s no. 4/5 starter, the sort who is on the fringe of making its playoff rotation.

Meanwhile, the Giants also get the 29th pick of a deeper-than-normal draft, and with it a $3.2 million bonus allotment. Combine that with their $9 million allotment for the fourth-overall pick, and suddenly the Giants have the flexibility to reallocate money to pay above-slot values for some later picks.

As for the Guardians, at 21-21 they somehow lead the AL Central. Bo Naylor, who started 23 of the team’s first 40 games before being optioned to the minors on Saturday, has started almost as slowly as Bailey, hitting .143/.200/.238 (23 wRC+) with two home runs in 90 plate appearances. His defense has been more solid than spectacular (-0.6 FRM, 0 FRV), and he has minor league options remaining, unlike the 33-year-old Hedges, who owns a career 51 wRC+ but is currently hitting an improbably robust .294/.351/.431 (119 wRC+) in 57 plate appearances. (Naylor will eventually be assigned to Triple-A, but the Guardians are first sending him to their complex in Goodyear, Arizona, “for a mini reset without the daily rigors of game activity,” according to Zack Meisel of The Athletic.) The Guardians do have a type, as they’ve spent over a decade fielding Bailey-ish catchers, light hitters who are at least solid defenders, if not necessarily among the game’s elite:

Only once since 2020 has a Guardians catcher reached 2.0 WAR in a season: 2023, when the rookie Naylor hit 11 home runs with a 123 wRC+ in 67 games for 2.1 WAR. Even with his light offense, Bailey’s defense offers a potential upgrade, and instead of the pressure that comes with both filling Posey’s sizable shoes and having him looking over his shoulder, Bailey will have another former catcher, Stephen Vogt, as his manager.

Posey is likely on his way to Cooperstown, but he’s still fairly green as an executive. Two of his biggest swings since taking over at the end of the 2024 season – the Devers trade and the hiring of Vitello straight from the college ranks — haven’t panned out yet, in that Devers is currently carrying a 79 wRC+, and Vitello got off to a rough start in communicating with his team and remains under heavy scrutiny. With the Giants enduring their worst start since 2017 and threatening to extend their postseason drought, Posey has taken another big swing with an early shakeup. We’ll see if this one connects.