Giants proven right with trade of Patrick Bailey to Guardians

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May 27, 2026 - 16:14

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Giants proven right with trade of Patrick Bailey to Guardians originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Buster Posey makes the decisions in the front office for the San Francisco Giants, and he's as qualified as anyone on the planet to know what it looks like when a quality catcher is also a good hitter.

That's how he knew that Patrick Bailey wasn't going to be the answer behind the plate for the Giants any longer, and that's why they traded him earlier in May to the Cleveland Guardians.

Bailey's defense is still elite, but the Giants decided they wanted to "find ways to get more runs on the board," Posey said after the trade.

It's early, but at least in their assessment of Bailey's bat, the Giants seem correct.

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While he has homered once with Cleveland, Bailey is hitting .120 through his first nine games with the Guardians.

He has actually raised his OPS to a meager .465 in Cleveland after it was .396 with the Giants.

Bailey was never a great hitter, but his numbers have trended down each season he has spent in the major leagues.

The Guardians decided they weren't getting hits from the catcher spot anyway and chose to go all in on defense.

"With (Bo) Naylor hitting just .143 with a .200 OBP at the time of the trade, after hitting just .195 as the regular Cleveland catcher in 2025, the Guardians figured if they weren't going to get much offense from their catcher, they had might as well go all-in with Bailey's pitch-framing skills," ESPN's David Schoenfield wrote on Wednesday.

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The Giants, on the other hand, simply couldn't put up with it anymore.

"The trade illustrates how San Francisco decided Bailey's lack of offense was no longer tolerable, no matter how valuable his defense," Schoenfield writes.

The biggest possible disappointment for the Giants would be if Bailey figures out how to hit against MLB pitching but does it with a different team.

If Bailey's bat doesn't come around, San Francisco won't regret dealing him away, despite the skill he has behind the plate.