How Patrick Bailey Plans to Get Acclimated to Guardians’ Pitching Staff

How Patrick Bailey Plans to Get Acclimated to Guardians’ Pitching Staff

Joining a new team in the middle of a season is hard enough for a player.

However, when that player is a catcher and is responsible for managing a brand new pitching staff and working with a game planning group they’ve never worked with before, it gets that much more difficult.

That’s the reality Patriack Bailey faces as he joins the Cleveland Guardians organization.

The backstop has a reputation as one of, if not the, best defensive catchers in baseball, but no natural skill set can make up for simply getting to know and understand a new set of teammates.

Bailey said on Saturday that getting acclimated to his new team will all come down to “communication” and “taking the effort to talk with the coaching staff [and] the pitching staff.”

“Obviously, there's tons of resources around here. I was trying to do a little bit of research on my way here, on the flight, and try to get a little bit of a head start.”

The good news is that Bailey has a history of catching some of baseball’s top pitchers. He knows what it takes to call a game for a team whose biggest strength is its pitching.

During Bailey’s four seasons with the San Francisco Giants, he caught for pitchers such as Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, and Blake Snell.

“At the end of the day, when I catch them, I'll get a feel for what they're doing and just, ‘Hey, you like this target? You don't like this target? You like this call? you don't like this call?’ We’ll figure it out.”