When Patrick Bailey first spoke to Cleveland sports media after the San Francisco Giants traded him to the Guardians on Saturday, he shared that while he was “a little bit surprised,” he could see “the writing on the wall a little bit.” By the time Monday rolled around, many fans would come to learn what that writing had said.
The first reveal came from an emergency episode of NBC Sports Bay Area’s “Giants Talk” podcast, hosted by Cole Kuiper and Giants beat reporter Alex Pavlovic. Their conversation served as the groundwork for sentiments that would come up in subsequent reports from other journalists. Pavlovic said there’d been growing frustration internally, citing questionable pitch calls during the Philadelphia doubleheader disaster and Bailey’s lack of offensive production. Pavlovic even reported that the Giants considered optioning Bailey down to Triple-A early in the 2025 season as the catcher struggled at the plate, writing Posey “had some lieutenants quietly scout other young options around the league who might be available last summer.”
But the NBC Sports Bay Area reporter also shared that there was a kind of clash of personalities. Bailey is “very laid back, generally in a good mood,” which was quite the juxtaposition compared to his spiritual predecessor and boss Buster Posey, the president of baseball operations for the Giants.
“Buster between the lines was intense and, you know, there was just a different intensity to Buster, and I think he just wanted something a little bit different from his catcher,” Pavlovic said.
Save for the difference in on-field vibes, Posey’s feelings toward Bailey became a widespread point for those covering the team. The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly started his Saturday game story with specifics about Posey’s frustrations. The Giants exec didn’t like the “optics” of Bailey’s dedication to framing — his ability to pull a pitch from the edge of the strike zone inside so it’s called a strike, not a ball — when it meant giving up passed balls. This problem had been circulating since at least “a couple of springs ago,” when the clubhouse legend brought this up to Bailey and preached the importance of clean catches over maximizing stolen strikes.
Baggarly’s Athletic colleague Ken Rosenthal also highlighted Posey’s issues with Bailey’s framing in a column published Monday, citing anonymous sources that the executive “over time, grew frustrated with Bailey” because he didn’t value that part of the 26-year-old’s skill set. He also noted the same April 30 doubleheader against the Phillies that Pavlovic referenced on the podcast, but he called it “a tipping point” for the team. The Giants lost a ninth-inning lead in both games when Bailey asked a reliever in each game to throw the same pitch — a sinker with Ryan Walker and a splitter with Keaton Winn — nine and seven times, respectively. According to F.P. Santangelo, a former Giants player and a current part-time broadcaster, Giants manager Tony Vitello and pitching coach Justin Meccage tried to get Bailey to throw a different pitch during those sequences, but they “couldn’t get his attention” behind the plate. Both at-bats produced game-tying hits for the Phillies and eventually led to two walk-off losses for San Francisco.
It’s no wonder that Bailey could see his departure from San Francisco coming with all of this in mind. Posey clearly has a specific vision for what an ideal Giants catcher should be, and for all of Bailey’s Gold Glove-winning talent, he just wasn’t going to fit that ideal if he couldn’t hit.
At the same time, this is now the second Posey-heir-apparent that the Giants have jettisoned from their squad after they failed to meet expectations. Supposedly, the combination of two rookies — Daniel Susac and Jesus Rodriguez — along with veteran Eric Haase should be more in line with what Posey wants. But trading Bailey away will only serve to increase the spotlight on the catcher spot, especially with the greatest player in team history at that very position watching their every move.