Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects: Two New Catchers Already Performing

The Pittsburgh Pirates acquired multiple catching prospects at this year’s Trade Deadline.

One of the most often talked about “needs” for the Pittsburgh Pirates has been the need for catching prospect depth.  Ben Cherington did not hastily acquire one, but in the last month he has brought in multiple notable prospects.  They drafted Henry Davis first overall and acquired two more in trades.

When the Pittsburgh Pirates acquired Abrahan Gutierrez, he was already doing well with the Philadelphia Phillies’ Low-A affiliate. Through 219 plate appearances, Guiterrez was hitting .288/.420/.429. Although he wasn’t hitting for much power, having a .141 isolated slugging percentage, he was a huge on-base threat. Gutierrez had a 16.9% walk rate while going down on strike three in just 14.2% of his plate appearances.

Since arriving to the Pirates, he has kept producing with the bat. Gutierrez was assigned to Low-A Bradenton where he has 18 plate appearances, 8 hits, and 2 doubles. He’s still walking a whole lot, drawing 3 walks with only 2 strikeouts. Overall, it’s been a career year for the backstop prospect. His .883 OPS way outdoes his previous single-season career-best of .769 in 2018.

Carter Bins was another catching prospect the Pirates acquired at the deadline. Part of the Tyler Anderson trade, Bins had spent most of the 2021 season with the Seattle Mariners’ High-A team where he had an outstanding .412 wOBA, and 145 wRC+. He was eventually promoted to Double-A where he struggled in his first 43 plate appearances, albeit with some bad luck.

Bins was sent to Double-A Altoona when the Pirates acquired him. He’s only appeared in 6 games and has gone to the plate 25 times, but has just 6 hits, 8 strikeouts, and just 2 walks. While he hasn’t done well at Double-A yet, we’re still looking at a small sample size of plate appearances.

It is great to see these two catching prospects continuing to perform.  It is never a bad thing to have catching depth, and both Bins and Gutierrez have the potential to be Major League catchers.  Obviously, Bins will be the first one up being in Double-A, with Davis and Gutierrez not far behind.