P2Daily: Henry Davis Continues to Destroy Baseballs

I’m not going to be surprised when Henry Davis moves up to Altoona in the first half of the season.

Davis was added to a Greensboro roster with two other catchers — Endy Rodriguez and Abrahan Gutierrez. Both of those players look like they need a full season in High-A to develop.

On the other hand, Davis has been mashing. He has a 1.002 OPS this season, and just hit his third home run of the year last night. That home run came on the road, his second of the season away from the hitter-friendly Greensboro home park. I don’t think there was any concern about Davis or his power only playing up in hitter-friendly environments, though.

The Pirates took Davis first overall last year in part to get savings for the prep players they took in the middle rounds. However, Davis was a legit pick at that spot, due primarily to his power potential and his ability to keep that power behind the plate long-term.

I’d expect to see Davis in Altoona this year, and wouldn’t be surprised if he moves up in the next month. I think he will spend most of the season at that level, and could have a shot to arrive in the majors for good in 2023.

Of course, we don’t really have a lot of experience in knowing how Ben Cherington will handle promotions of this sort. His only other first round pick, Nick Gonzales, spent the entire first season in High-A. That said, Gonzales didn’t have the numbers that Davis is putting up so far, and his debut came one year after the pandemic-lost season, when the Pirates were being very conservative about pushing guys up.

Davis was added as a future cornerstone guy to build around. Regardless of when he moves up, every home run like last night gives one more preview of the future potential he could show in Pittsburgh one day.

Check out today’s Daily Video Rundown for the Davis home run from last night.