After being acquired in the Joe Musgrove trade, Endy Rodriguez quickly established himself as one of the best hitting prospects in the Pirates system.
Not only that, but he was one of the best hitting in the Florida State League (then called Low-A Southeast), helping lead the Bradenton Marauders to the division title.
The most impressive part was his ability to balance handling a pitching staff and still be able to be as good as he was at the plate.
That’s one of the caveats of developing catchers. With so much to worry about, sometimes parts of your game can suffer. In those times, it may seem that a player is stagnant, but really it’s about finding balance.
Rodriguez was one of four catchers to make the opening day roster with Greensboro, along with 2021 first overall pick Henry Davis, Abrahan Gutierrez, and Eli Wilson. While Davis took the majority of the time behind the plate, the rest were forced to find playing time elsewhere.
Once Davis got promoted, that freed up playing time that Rodriguez and Gutierrez have split for the most part since. I wrote previously about the adjustments the two were going to face being plugged back into their natural position.
Rodriguez didn’t get off to the best of starts this season, striking out a lot more than what he had done previously (31.6 K%), and held a slash of .240/.278/.373 in the month of April.
Ever since the calendar turned over to May, Rodriguez has started to heat up, to the point where he’s starting to be the same hitter he was a year ago.
Since May, Rodriguez has a 145 wRC+ to go along with a .405 wOBA, but maybe the most encouraging part of it all has been the steady decrease in strikeouts as the year as gone on.
After striking out over 30% of the time in April, he did so 24.1% of the time in May, followed by 17.9% since the start of June.
He’s also hit 21 extra-base hits in that span, adding another double on Wednesday.
As for his work behind the plate, Rodriguez continues to show that him receiving playing time elsewhere isn’t an indication of his inability to play catcher. He’s thrown out over 20% of would-be base stealers — an increase from last year — and he’s cut the amount of passed balls down.
While a lot of the numbers in Greensboro have been underwhelming, Rodriguez is starting to move in the right direction. What’s even better is that he’s doing that on both sides of the field. Davis may still be looked at as the catcher of the future because of his draft status, but Endy is continuing to lay the claim to be a legitimate backup plan going forward.
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Song of the Day
Man do I love this kid.
Murph said it best, ignoring draft status THIS is our catcher of the future.
Future Russell Martin!
“back up plan”… but i get the point👍… I always say the same thing about Bae when folks talk abt Nicky G… If Bae was first rd pick and Nicky G. was international pickup not sure we would ever hear abt Nick🤔🤔
Can’t have too much good pitching…nor catching.
Playing Catcher is a capital G Grind! Thus far there’s no reason to believe Davis will be up to playing 120 or so games back there. Pirates would be well served to have a good Plan B and Plan C (Gutierrez).
Absolutely! Especially since Davis may not be Plan A behind the plate. He hits well enough to play first or DH. Catcher is the most important defensive position, far more than SS, and so far his role is unclear.
Based off who is in the system now with one noticeable exception or wish, my 2026 lineup prediction is
2b Bae
3b Hayes
DH Davis
RF Cruz
1B Kevin Parada
SS Peguero
LF Gorski/Mitchell/Suwinski/Njiba
whoever develops the best bat
C Rodriguez
CF Swaggerty
That team should be competitive and there’s plenty of payroll space to add pieces as well.
I’ve been on the Endy our future catcher and Davis our future 1b train for a while! They could both play both, but the majority should be Endy receiving! And just let Davis smash!
Carry all 3 catchers if at least Endy and Davis both show they can hit and rotate them at between 1B/C/DH with Gutierrez as the back up for. At least until they come up with a beast that play 1B daily.
Endy pulls a Gleyber and gets time at 2b.