The Braves announced they’ve traded reliever Hunter Stratton to the Pirates for catcher Joey Bart. Atlanta designated backup catcher Sandy León for assignment to open a spot on the 40-man roster. The Braves had designated Stratton for assignment yesterday. He’ll replace Bart on Pittsburgh’s 40-man but won’t join the MLB team, as the Bucs optioned him to Triple-A Indianapolis.
Bart is on the 10-day injured list working back from an infection in his left foot. He hasn’t played an MLB game since May 9 but has been on a minor league rehab assignment for the past week. Atlanta will presumably activate him directly onto the big league roster, as they optioned third catcher Jair Camargo back to Triple-A Gwinnett this afternoon.
It’s a homecoming for the 29-year-old Bart, who grew up less than an hour from Atlanta and played his college ball at Georgia Tech. He was part of a run of high-end catchers for the Yellow Jackets over the past couple decades, spanning from Matt Wieters to potential #1 overall pick Vahn Lackey. Bart went second overall to the Giants in 2018, making him the highest drafted player in school history to date.
The draft pedigree certainly makes him the more well known of the two players in today’s trade. Bart hasn’t developed into the franchise backstop many scouts expected, however. He hit .219/.288/.335 over parts of four seasons in San Francisco. Between that lackluster production and Patrick Bailey’s emergence into a Gold Glove caliber defender, the Giants traded him to Pittsburgh at the beginning of the 2024 season.
That change of scenery initially seemed to spark Bart’s career. He hit .265/.337/.462 over 80 games and opened the next season as Pittsburgh’s starting catcher. His numbers backed up slightly the following year, as he posted a .249/.355/.340 line across a career-high 332 plate appearances. Bart opened this season in a split behind the plate with former first overall pick Henry Davis. The Bucs promoted Endy Rodríguez from Triple-A when Bart went on the injured list five weeks ago.
Rodríguez, himself a formerly touted young talent who lost most of the previous two seasons to injury, has seized the primary catcher role. He’s hitting .267/.413/.467 with three home runs through 76 plate appearances. The Pirates could’ve optioned Davis, who has a .138/.242/.285 line across 150 trips.
Davis’ results at the plate have been terrible, but he has hit the ball harder and showed stronger plate discipline in May than he had previously in his MLB career. It seems the Pirates expect that to translate into better numbers over time and didn’t feel he’d gain much out of going back to Triple-A. Even more importantly, Davis has developed a strong rapport with Paul Skenes and has caught all 15 of the ace’s starts this year. They clearly didn’t want to disrupt that routine.
Bart, who hit .259/.290/.379 in 21 games before the injury, is out of options and couldn’t be sent down without going through waivers. The Bucs are already burning a bench spot on a player with no defensive value in keeping Marcell Ozuna on the roster. They could’ve optioned Billy Cook and gone with three catchers, but they’d have left skipper Don Kelly with very limited positional flexibility.
They instead choose to swap Bart to an Atlanta team that has cycled through backup catchers since Sean Murphy broke his finger five weeks ago. They were also without Drake Baldwin for a few weeks but welcomed him back on Monday. It’ll be a Baldwin-Bart catching duo for the foreseeable future.
Pittsburgh is in desperate need of bullpen help, especially from the right side. Stratton isn’t a huge fix but provides a depth arm who can bounce between PNC Park and Indianapolis for the next couple seasons. He’ll be a familiar name to some Bucs fans, as the 29-year-old spent nearly a decade in the organization.
The Pirates drafted him in the 16th round back in 2017. Stratton debuted six years later and posted a 4.30 earned run average across 52 1/3 innings over parts of three seasons. Pittsburgh designated him for assignment last July and traded him to Atlanta for minor league outfielder Titus Dumitru and cash considerations. The Braves cycled him up and down from Gwinnett in the second half last year.
Stratton has spent all but two days in the minors this season. He has a 4.38 ERA while walking more than 14% of opposing hitters across 21 2/3 innings. Stratton has shown better control at the MLB level, where he has a 3.75 ERA over 60 career appearances. He’s working in the 96 mph range with his fastball while throwing a low-90s cutter and mid-80s slider — more or less the same repertoire he had during his first run with Pittsburgh.
Atlanta also takes some money off Pittsburgh’s books. Stratton has yet to qualify for arbitration and would make around the league minimum for any time he spends on the MLB roster (less while in Triple-A). Bart is making $2.53MM, around $1.3MM of which is owed through season’s end. The Braves take that on, plus a 20% overage fee because they’re above the luxury tax line. Bart will be eligible for arbitration for a final time next offseason.
The trade pushes the veteran León off the roster after a six-week stint. He’ll go on waivers in the next couple days, where he’ll presumably clear and be released. León has appeared in 21 games this year and has four hits, all singles, while striking out 18 times in 44 plate appearances. He’s a respected defender and game manager but provides so little offensively that he has been an organizational depth player for the past few seasons.
Image courtesy of Scott Galvin, Imagn Images.