Patrick Bailey Highest-Rated San Francisco Giants Player in Fangraphs Rankings

Giants catcher Patrick Bailey ranks among the Top 30 players in Major League Baseball going into the 2025 season.

Sep 28, 2024; San Francisco, California, USA; San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey (14) reacts after scoring a run against the St. Louis Cardinals during the fourth inning at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: Robert Edwards-Imagn Images / Robert Edwards-Imagn Images

The San Francisco Giants have taken strides toward being competitive in the National League West under their new president of baseball operations Buster Posey.

Posey is a legend in the Bay Area after spending 12 years with the Giants as their superstar catcher, helping lead the club to three World Series Championships during his tenure.

There is a new sheriff in town behind the plate for San Francisco calling pitches, and his name is Patrick Bailey.

Bailey may not be the offensive threat the Posey was as an all-around spectacular catcher, but Bailey more than makes up for it with his defensive ability.

It is that defensive ability that led Fangraphs to rank Bailey as the 29th-best player in MLB ahead of the 2025 campaign.

The catcher made his Major League debut in 2023 and has batted .234/.292/.348 with 15 home runs, 94 RBI, and an 81 OPS+ across 801 plate appearances in 218 games in that time.

Those numbers are certainly nothing to write home about, with his OPS+ indicating that he has been 19 percent worse than league average, but his glove has been spectacular.

While Bailey has not been the best at blocking wild pitches, his ability to control the running game as well as his framing ability has made him one of the preeminent catchers in the sport.

Per Baseball Savant, Bailey accounted for 16 runs of value with his framing in each of 2023 and 2024, the highest mark in baseball in both years. He caught six baserunners stealing above average in 2023, and nine in 2024, while posting pop times of 1.87 in 2023 (95th percentile) and 1.85 in 2024 (97th percentile).

Catchers come at a premium, with most either being good on offense, or good on defense, but not many being good at both. Bailey certainly falls into the latter category and is one of the best defensively in the sport.

There is still time for the young catcher to improve his abilities on offense, even doing so from 2023 to 2024 with a 78 OPS+ in 2023 and an 84 OPS+ in 2024.

If he continues to improve at this rate, the Giants will have the best defensive catcher in the sport, who is roughly league-average at the plate by 2028.