Looking At Catching Depth After Scary Moment

With all the injuries the Pittsburgh Pirates have gone through this year, fans were left holding their breath when Jacob Stallings left Sunday's game with a left knee injury. We take a look at who is available if the Pirates need to dip into their catching depth.

With all the injuries that the Pittsburgh Pirates have had to deal with over the last couple of seasons, there has been one position that has been a constant. Jacob Stallings has been a workhorse behind the plate. He caught more innings than any other catcher last season and is currently second among catchers in doubles with 13. So, to say Pirate fans are holding their breath today would be an understatement. Stallings took a hard foul ball off his left knee and was forced to leave Sunday's game in the seventh inning. Michael Perez came in to catch the final three innings of the game and went 0-1 dropping his season average to .100 (4-40).

Stallings is set to go through some evaluations today and then the Pirates will determine how to move forward. Preliminary reports from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette's Mike Persak is that Stallings suffered a left leg contusion. There was no telling how serious the injury is and how much time Stallings will miss. If he does have to miss any time, there is really no clear guy who is going to step in and take over. Perez's performance this season definitely doesn't give him the green light, and no one in Triple-A has any consistent time as a Big League catcher. Today, we look at who the Pirates have down in the Minor Leagues that could step up and produce at the Big League level.

Andrew Susac

If you are going off of experience and experience alone, the easy choice would be to call up 31-year-old catcher Andrew Susac. Susac has spent parts of six seasons in the Big Leagues with the Giants, Brewers, Orioles, and Pirates, and is a career .219 hitter with seven home runs and 35 RBI. However, he hasn't spent any consistent time in the Big Leagues since the 2015 season when he hit .218 with three home runs and 14 RBI. Susac did play in one game at the end of last season with the Pirates, as manager Derek Shelton called Susac up from the taxi squad. He ended up going 0-2 with two walks in the game and ended his 2020 season with some in-game action.

With Susac, you pretty much know you are going to get a sub-par offensive option who can play good defense. Susac knows what it takes to win games, as he was Buster Posey's backup catcher for the 2014 World Series Champion Giants. That was also his best offensive season to date when he hit .273 with three home runs and 19 RBI in 35 games. One thing Susac does have going for him is he is a very patient hitter at the plate. His career walk rate is 8.6%, and his season-best is 10.6% in 2015, both are above league average. He doesn't have the strongest arm behind the plate, throwing out 25.7% of runners in his career, but he has a strike percentage of 49.3% that is in the top 20% of the league.

Christian Bethancourt

One of the newest additions to the Pittsburgh Pirates catching staff is 29-year-old catcher Christian Bethancourt. Bethancourt has spent parts of five seasons in the Big Leagues from 2013 to 2017 with the Atlanta Braves and San Diego Padres. However, he has not been back in the Big Leagues since and even spent a little bit of time I'm the Mexican Baseball League. He got back to Minor League Baseball last season when he signed with the Philadelphia Phillies. However, he did not get any playing time due to the Coronavirus pandemic and hit free agency again. He signed with the Pirates as a Minor League free agent on May 1st and was assigned to Triple-A Indianapolis.

He has been off to a hot start offensively with the Indians, as he has hit .333 with a home run and three RBI in four games. In his first four games of the season, he has had two multi-hit games and has already been a walk-off hero. Yesterday, he helped the Indians beat the Toledo Mudhens 6-5 with a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth. He wasn't really known for his power in the past, with just two multi-home run seasons since 2008. However, his best offensive season was in his last Minor League stint with the Brewers organization when he hit .297 with 20 home runs and 71 RBI. This may be Bethancourt's chance to get back to the Big Leagues and show he can still hang with the pros.

Joe Hudson

Another addition to the Pirates this off-season was catcher Joe Hudson, who signed as a Minor League free agent. He has played a total of 18 games at the Big League level and has hit .167 with no home runs and one RBI. Most of his playing time came with the Seattle Mariners in 2020, when he made a nine-game appearance and went 3-17 in 20 plate appearances. So far in Indianapolis, it hasn't been as strong of a showing as he is hitting just .222 in his first five games of the season. He has four singles and one double but just hasn't had that break-out moment yet offensively. However, the defensive side of his game is where he excels the most.

In his nine Minor League seasons, he has a career fielding percentage of .991 in 4,276.1 innings played behind the plate. He does a really good job at controlling the run game, throwing out 42.7% of the runners he faced. Defense has been the hallmark of the catching position for the Pirates, and Hudson definitely does a nice job behind the plate. However, the question about whether or not he will hit the ball consistently has always been the question with Hudson. His highest batting average in the Minor Leagues was .293 in 2018, but other than that he has never had a batting average over .247. If Hudson wants an opportunity at the Big League level, he is going to have to show that he can hit a little more consistently.

The Pittsburgh Pirates (17-23) are off today, but return to action tomorrow when they go on the road to face the St. Louis Cardinals (23-17) at 7:45 pm. JT Brubaker (3-2, 2.58) takes the hill after a big win last time out as he goes against John Gant (2-3, 1.83). You can watch the game on AT&T Sportsnet, listen on 93.7 The Fan, or follow along with us on Twitter by following @Buccos_Cove.

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