SF Giants: Expect Joey Bart to start the majority of games behind the plate

SF Giants’ manager Gabe Kapler said that he expects Joey Bart to start the majority of games.

The SF Giants have finally pulled the trigger on the long-awaited Joey Bart call-up and his arrival in the big leagues has been met with pure excitement from both team members and fans alike.

The Giants’ top prospect will be making his major-league debut later tonight when the team takes on the Los Angeles Angels in the fourth and final game of their four-game series.

Holding a 2-1 series lead, Bart will be looking to help the Giants record their first series win since the beginning of the month when they took two out of three games against the Texas Rangers.

Manager Gabe Kapler announced that Bart would be batting sixth in the lineup and starting at catcher tonight. And that’s a sight that Giants fans should get used to.

When speaking about Bart’s arrival in the majors, Kapler dropped a little hint about how much he plans on using the catching phenom. And it appears that the answer is quite a lot.

"“The goal is to get Joey in the lineup as much as possible, to get as much experience behind the plate and in the batter’s box as possible. We may have to just monitor his workload early on based on how much work he got in Sacramento. Catching nine innings is a stressor, catching nine innings in a major league season is more of a stressor than it is in a secondary camp. We need to be cognizant of all those things. However, the goal is to build him to be our everyday starting catcher.”"

Kapler indicated that the plan is for Bart to become the Giants’ everyday starting catcher — a moment many Giants fans have been longing for. However, few expected it would come this soon.

The Joey Bart era with the SF Giants has arrived sooner than expected.

Buster Posey was expected to remain the Giants’ starting catcher this season and while he’s seen some time at first base, that fact wasn’t supposed to change. But everything changed when Posey announced that he was opting out of the 2020 season.

That left the Giants with a major hole at the catcher position — one that they didn’t feel comfortable inserting Bart into just yet. Despite an incredible showing in both incarnations of spring training, Bart was optioned to the Giants’ alternate site in Sacramento.

But after some disappointing play, the Giants finally decided that it was time to give Bart his shot.

To make room for Bart, the Giants optioned Tyler Heineman to the alternate site. Heineman went just 8-for-41 in his time with the team hitting under the Mendoza Line and recording just one RBI in 13 games.

Chadwick Tromp is expected to remain with the big-league club and will serve as Bart’s regular backup. And although Kapler doesn’t usually like the idea of “personal catchers,” don’t be surprised if Tromp is behind the dish more often than not when Johnny Cueto is on the mound.

The Joey Bart era has officially arrived. And it looks like he’s here to stay.