{"id":309185,"date":"2026-05-10T17:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T17:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/309185\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T17:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T17:30:13","slug":"why-sf-giants-traded-patrick-bailey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/309185\/","title":{"rendered":"Why SF Giants traded Patrick Bailey"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Jes\u00fas Rodr\u00edguez<\/a> and Daniel Susac<\/a>, a pair of 24-year-old rookie catchers, have played a combined 15 games in the majors. Realistically, neither will match the defensive capabilities of Patrick Bailey, a two-time Gold Glove Award winner and arguably the best defender in the sport.<\/p>\n

But as of Saturday morning, when Bailey was traded to the Cleveland Guardians<\/a> for a draft pick and a pitching prospect, Rodr\u00edguez and Susac will be tasked with running the show behind the plate.<\/p>\n

President of baseball operations Buster Posey said Saturday the trade wasn\u2019t an indictment of Bailey, who has struggled at the plate early this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s more the confidence that we have in Jes\u00fas Rodr\u00edguez and Daniel Susac and just the strides that we feel like, as an organization, they\u2019ve made defensively,\u201d said president of baseball operations Buster Posey. \u201cBoth of them are swinging the bat well. As you noted, not necessarily only Patty who\u2019s been off to a slow start offensively this year, but just as a whole, just trying to find ways to get more runs on the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

Posey declined to share the details of how the trade materialized, but did say there was \u201ca lot of interest\u201d in Bailey, who was notified following Friday\u2019s 5-2 win<\/a> and joined the Guardians in Cleveland on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a pro,\u201d Posey said. \u201cHe was a pro this whole last week with not even starting like he normally does.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Giants are still several days away from the Susac-Rodr\u00edguez era as Susac is currently rehabbing from right elbow ulnar neuritis with Triple-A Sacramento. He\u2019ll likely jointhe Giants on their upcoming three-city road trip.<\/p>\n

As for Bailey, who lost playing time to both rookies this season? He\u2019ll get a new opportunity with manager Stephen Vogt and the Cleveland Guardians, one of the best possible landing spots for his elite defensive services.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatty\u2019s importance to our team kind of speaks for itself,\u201d said third baseman Matt Chapman. \u201cHe\u2019s been great behind the plate for us for a few years now. Obviously, the offensive struggles happened. But you see Jes\u00fas come up, and obviously, we\u2019ve got Susac coming up too, whenever he\u2019s ready. They played really well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Buster liked what he saw in those guys. Sometimes you have a lot of good players at the same position. I think he was ready to make a change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Bailey\u2019s well-documented struggles on offense, it\u2019s hard to overstate just how valuable he was on defense. He already has two Gold Gloves, and there\u2019s an argument he should have three. The automated ball-strike system (ABS) has sapped some of his value, but he\u2019s still been the game\u2019s best framer with an elite pop time.<\/p>\n

There are also unquantifiable skills such as calling pitches and guiding a pitching staff. Take Friday, for example. Bailey entered as a defensive replacement for Rodr\u00edguez and guided Caleb Kilian through a rocky ninth inningwhen he clearly didn\u2019t have his best command.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s pretty much the only guy I\u2019ve thrown to, except a couple different guys here and there,\u201d said Logan Webb, who landed on the injured list for the first time since 2021. \u201cBut it\u2019s been me and Patty for a long time. Obviously, I\u2019m going to miss him. I\u2019m going to miss him more as a friend, but I\u2019m excited for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gets to be a little closer to home. I\u2019ve never played on the East Coast. I\u2019m from here, so I don\u2019t know what it feels like to be far away. I did in the minor leagues, and it was hard. But I\u2019m happy for him. Sometimes a fresh start is the best thing that can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bailey had clearly lost his grasp on the starting job. Susac started to get more playing time over Bailey after starting his career 11-for-23 at the plate before landing on the injured list. Rodr\u00edguez was promoted earlier this week along with top prospect Bryce Eldridge, getting starts at catcher on Monday, Tuesday and Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cA little bit surprised, but at the same time, you kind of see the writing on the wall,\u201d Bailey told reporters in Cleveland.<\/p>\n

One lingering question with this trade is whether it would have happened if the Giants\u2019 offense hadn\u2019t been the worst in the majors up to this point.<\/p>\n

While Bailey had been objectively bad at the plate, the Giants\u2019 offensive struggles were not on his shoulders. If the likes of Rafael Devers, Willy Adames and Chapman were clicking, Bailey\u2019s struggles would\u2019ve been minimized.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tough hypothetical,\u201d Posey said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to say. Again, more so than detracting from some of the shortcomings for Bailey offensively, I\u2019d rather just focus on Jes\u00fas swinging the bat well in Triple-A, and then Daniel with a nice start here. Hopefully, that\u2019s some momentum that they can carry going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

In time, the Giants will have to decide if they continue rolling with a three-catcher mix when Susac returns from injury.<\/p>\n

Given Rodr\u00edguez and Susac\u2019s lack of major-league experience, 33-year-old veteran catcher Eric Haase could be a valuable resource to help the rookies navigate their first season in the majors. Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s defensive versatility makes keeping Haase on the roster more feasible, but the impending return of center fielder Harrison Bader adds to the complexity of the roster calculus.<\/p>\n

When asked about having two rookie catchers take up most of the playing time, Vitello said that the pitching staff has \u201ca little bit of a responsibility\u201d to help bring them along. Webb said throwing to Rodr\u00edguez and Susac is \u201cdefinitely going to take a little bit of time,\u201d noting that there were \u201ca decent amount of shakes\u201d when the rookies caught him this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it was the same thing when Patty first came up,\u201d Webb said. \u201cI wore PitchCom when Patty came up. It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t trust them. I know what I want to throw, or I have something in my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Webb noted that it\u2019s not uncommon for teams to be very successful with a young catcher behind the plate, pointing out how the Arizona Diamondbacks went the 2023 World Series with Gabriel Moreno. Of course, as one reporter pointed out to Webb, there\u2019s another example of a rookie catcher leading his team to a championship.<\/p>\n

Sixteen years later, that former catcher is putting the responsibility of the team he runs into the hands of two rookies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose two work their butts off. It\u2019s been fun to be around them a lot. I haven\u2019t thrown into either of them a ton, but I think it takes some time,\u201d Webb said. \u201cI\u2019m sure if you went back to 2010 and you asked Matt [Cain] or one of those guys, they\u2019d probably say the same thing about Buster.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Jes\u00fas Rodr\u00edguez and Daniel Susac, a pair of 24-year-old rookie catchers, have played a combined…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2135,184,7,32099,23726,402,181,1334,395,101,396,4820,103,102,104,106,105,127],"class_list":["post-309185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-baseball","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-giants-alert","tag-giants-hq","tag-inside-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-peninsula","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-county","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}