Oakland Athletics: Josh Phegley continues to impress as an everyday catcher

Josh Phegley’s historic performance on Friday night propelled the Oakland Athletics to victory and continued his recent string of excellent play throughout the first month of the season.

The Oakland Athletics didn’t expect to get much production from the catcher position this year. After last season’s starter Jonathan Lucroy departed via free agency to the Los Angeles Angels, the A’s were left with a ragtag group of veteran backups who were set to compete for the starting job.

Now over a month into the season, one player has taken advantage of his opportunity and emerged above the rest.

Longtime Athletics backup Josh Phegley is off to an incredible start and is playing the best baseball of his career at the perfect time. The lifetime .227 hitter is currently batting at a .273 pace and hosts a .819 OPS through 26 games played thus far this season.

This all came to a head Friday night when Phegley drove in a record-breaking eight RBI, the most by any A’s catcher in team history. In fact, only the great Reggie Jackson has ever driven in more runs in a single game for the Athletics before when he posted 10 RBI way back in 1969.

Again, this is Josh Phegley.

The same Josh Phegley who wasn’t even a lock to make the Opening Day roster coming out of spring training. The Josh Phegley who has played in over 70 games just once in his career and has had an on-base percentage of just .255 over the last two seasons.

But this isn’t the same Josh Phegley anymore, at least he isn’t playing like it.

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Phegley worked closely with hitting coach Darren Bush in spring training as the two tried to improve his patience at the plate and his ability to hit to all fields. It’s evidently paying off as he’s upped his hard-hit percentage to a superb 37.3% and his average launch-angle is up to 28.2, double what it was last season.

His string of excellent performances couldn’t have come at a better time either. The other catcher to make the Opening Day roster, veteran Nick Hundley, is struggling mightily at the plate hitting just .190 at the moment with only one RBI on the entire season.

Moreover, the A’s signed former Seattle Mariners catcher Chris Herrmann in the offseason and the journeyman was expected to make the roster due to his left-handed hitting presence. However, Herrmann underwent arthroscopic knee surgery in March and is still rehabbing for his eventual return.

At the very least, A’s fans were excited about the possible debut of top catching prospect Sean Murphy who was on track for a big-league call-up sometime early this summer. The 2016 draft-pick was hitting .324/.402/.459 in 87 plate appearances this season with Triple-A Las Vegas before suffering a torn meniscus which could keep him out for close to two months of action.

This makes the unlikely emergence of Phegley all the more important.

The A’s don’t have a current answer at the catcher position outside of Phegley. With Hundley struggling and Herrmann and Murphy rehabbing significant injuries, there is no “Plan B” at the moment.

Fortunately, their possible “Plan C” has emerged as a legitimate “Plan A.”