Patrick Bailey Is Wildly Underrated

A survey from 2023 found that nearly half of American men think they could land a passenger plane. Another poll from 2019 found that 12% of British men thought they could win a point off Serena Williams.

I like to think I’m not that delusional. I’m comfortable enough in my masculinity to admit that I couldn’t land a plane, I couldn’t score against Serena Williams, and I couldn’t survive in hand-to-hand combat with a bear.

That’s why I want to make this next point crystal clear: I do not claim to know more about catching than Buster Posey. The San Francisco Giants president of baseball operations knows more about catching than I will ever know about anything.

So, if Posey decided it was time for his team to move on from Patrick Bailey, the smartest thing I can do is trust him. At the same time, I’m a huge fan of Bailey’s – and not just in my coffee. I won’t say the Giants made a mistake giving him up for pitching prospect Matt Wilkinson and the No. 29 pick in this summer’s draft, but I’m confident the Cleveland Guardians made the right call to buy low on the best defensive catcher in baseball.

Patrick Bailey Is Aaron Judge Behind the Plate

Bailey didn’t make his MLB debut until the Giants’ 44th game of the 2023 season. That’s more than a quarter of the way through the year. Despite giving everyone else a head start, he still finished his rookie season as the major league leader in Baseball Savant’s Fielding Run Value (FRV).

He led the league again in his first full season, this time by more than 10 runs. The difference between Bailey in first (28 FRV) and Alejandro Kirk in second (17 FRV) was the same as that between Kirk and the 12 players tied for 56th.

Bailey outdid himself in 2025, posting a league-leading 31 FRV. His arm was elite and his framing unparalleled, as usual, but he also posted his best numbers as a blocker, collecting his second consecutive Gold Glove and Fielding Bible awards for his efforts.

Altogether, in his first three MLB seasons, Bailey was worth almost 30 runs more than any other player. That’s an Aaron Judge level of dominance. I’m serious. In the same time period, Judge was worth 26 more batting runs than the next best hitter.

Great defense isn’t as valuable as great hitting. Bailey was worth 80 fielding runs from 2023-25, while Judge produced 221 batting runs in the same span. Yet, in terms of surplus value compared to the next-best option, Bailey’s glove was every bit as elite as Judge’s bat.

In case you’re thinking that Statcast’s defensive metrics are too favorable to Bailey, you’ll have to take the issue up with FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus as well. Both of their comprehensive defensive metrics (Def and DRP) agree that Bailey was the game’s best defender through his first three seasons.

Thanks to that defense, Bailey was a top-40 position player and a top-five catcher in MLB, according to FanGraphs WAR. His 10.2 fWAR from 2023-25 puts him right between Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Jose Altuve on the leaderboard. Among catchers, he trailed only Cal Raleigh, William Contreras, and Will Smith.

For context, let me show you the fourth-ranked player at every other position:

Every player on that list, except for Bailey, has made at least one All-Star team in the last three years. Most of them have earned MVP votes. This is the kind of company Patrick Bailey keeps.

Where the Aaron Judge Comparisons End

The reason Bailey doesn’t have the star reputation he deserves is one I’ve already mentioned: Great defense isn’t as valuable as great hitting. As a result, fans, the media, and even front offices care a whole lot more about offense.

A player who hits dingers is going to get more attention than a player who turns shadow zone pitches into called strikes, even if all the smartest metrics prove that shouldn’t be the case. That’s why Salvador Perez can be called a future Hall of Famer and Patrick Bailey can be traded for a modest return – even though Perez has never had a season with an fWAR as high as Bailey’s 4.3 in 2024.

To be clear, criticisms of Bailey’s bat aren’t unfounded. From 2023-25, he hit .230 with 21 home runs and a 76 wRC+. Only two players took more plate appearances and had a lower wRC+ in those years: Javy Báez and Brenton Doyle.

So far in 2026, things are even worse. A lot worse. Bailey is batting .141. Only one of his 12 hits has gone for extra bases. His wRC+ is 13. It’s been so bad that even his still-excellent defense hasn’t been enough to keep his fWAR above replacement level. There’s no question that this was one of the reasons why the Giants were comfortable giving him up.

However, Bailey’s .180 batting average on balls in play suggests regression is coming. His career BABIP entering the season was .302. If his BABIP were at that level in 2026, he’d have another seven hits already, raising his batting average by 83 points.

Similarly, his .275 xwOBA is more than 90 points higher than his .184 wOBA. That xwOBA looks a lot like his career .276 wOBA entering 2026.

If anything, Bailey might actually be swinging the bat a little better this year than he has before. His bat speed, squared-up rate, and hard-hit rate are all up compared to 2025, while his strikeout rate is down.

None of this is to say I have high hopes for Bailey’s bat. He’s still a poor hitter. But what he’s going through right now is just a slump. His offensive baseline is already so low that his numbers during a slump look appalling. Yet, there’s no reason to believe he isn’t the same player who hit well enough to let his glove carry him to 10 wins above replacement across his first three seasons.

Indeed, that’s what separates Bailey from what the Guardians already had: Austin Hedges. Like Bailey, Hedges is a super-elite defensive catcher. Unlike Bailey, he’s never been able to hold onto a starting job.

It would be easy to look at each of their offensive numbers and write them both off as terrible hitters. That would be a mistake. Bailey’s career 71 wRC+ is 20 points higher than Hedge’s career mark of 51. Even worse, Hedges owns just a 40 wRC+ since 2023.

So, taking a plate appearance from Hedges and giving it to Bailey adds roughly the same marginal value as taking a plate appearance away from Josh Bell (102 wrC+ since 2023) and giving it to José Ramírez (130 wRC+ since 2023).

Patrick Bailey’s career 71 wRC+ means he might never be a star. His 13 wRC+ in 2026 might be what lost him his job in San Francisco. Regardless, his phenomenal defensive skills allowed him to overcome his offensive shortcomings to be one of the best catchers in baseball over his first three seasons. That’s the player the Guardians traded for, and that’s the player who might just put them over the top in their quest for a third straight AL Central crown.