BRADENTON, Fla. — Searching for solitude and his swing, Henry Davis found a baseball facility that was empty in the morning this offseason. He arrived early and put on headphones while hitting fastballs off a self-feeder.
What was on his playlist?
“Crowd noise,” Davis said. “I just wanted to replicate a game environment, as close as possible. Listen, quiet your thoughts and clear your head.”
After being drafted No. 1 overall in 2021 and making a meteoric rise to the major leagues, Davis struggled mightily in his second season. The pressure he put on himself to perform became detrimental to his development, so Davis decided to block out everything, get back to the basics and focus on hitting the ball.
Where Davis reported to spring training last year hell-bent on living up to his billing by winning the starting catcher job, he returned to Pirate City this year in a different headspace. He reflected on what went wrong and how to correct it, then did what he does best: Went to work.
The most valuable lesson Davis is learning is how to work smarter, not harder. He couldn’t accept that the game was going to hit back, that he was going to endure adversity and that his renowned work ethic would prove counterproductive because he was trying to do too much.
“Henry has the 1/1 moniker on him, and I do think he puts pressure on himself to try to do a little too much,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said at the start of training camp. “All we want him to do is play baseball, have good at-bats, handle a pitching staff, do the little things. We know that he cares. We know that he plays hard. He’s performed at every level in the minor leagues, and it will translate to the big leagues.”
This isn’t the first time Davis has dealt with disappointment. He recounts that he batted .200 his freshman year at Fox Lane High School in Bedford, N.Y., and that he got two hits in 25 games the fall season of his freshman year at Louisville. Davis has always been someone who pushes through growing pains with a tireless work ethic.
Davis not only wants to win but to be a catalyst for a Pirates championship. He keeps a counter on his wall of how many days have passed since they last won a World Series. That occurred on Oct. 17, 1979, so his math is starting to get fuzzy.
“It’s freaking too many. Thousands and thousands of days — and it grows every day,” said Davis, who signed for $6.5 million out of Louisville. “The difference here was I felt the most urgency I have because this is an organization where we all know has to take steps forward. I felt the faster that I could become a player that would really change the tone here, from the off-field stuff in the clubhouse to the on-field, the better that would be for the organization.”
Davis, 25, knows this could be a make-or-break season for him with the Pirates. That he’s competing for a roster spot behind Joey Bart is the ultimate irony, presenting the perfect person for Davis to discuss how to deal with the pressure of being a high draft pick and the one who’s blocking his path.
‘Lick your wounds’
Selected No. 2 overall by the San Francisco Giants in the 2018 MLB Draft, Bart can certainly relate. He became the heir apparent to 2012 NL MVP and three-time World Series champion Buster Posey as soon as he signed for $7.025 million, the largest bonus ever for a position player.
Bart was a shooting star who played in the 2019 All-Star Futures Game and reached Double-A in his first full professional season. When Posey opted out of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, the Giants rushed Bart to make his major league debut. Bouncing between the majors and minors the next two seasons proved challenging for Bart, who was passed by Patrick Bailey on the depth chart in 2023.
Last year, the Giants designated Bart for assignment, then traded him to the Pirates in early April. The change of scenery resuscitated Bart’s career, and he hit a career-best 13 home runs in 80 games for the Pirates last season to solidify a starting role and spot in the middle of the batting order.
“As a player, you can’t really look at what’s ahead of you. You just look at right now,” Bart said. “For Henry, he’s such a young kid with a ton of talent. He’s a ticking time bomb away from being a beast. Me and him, we’ve talked a lot in the past. You’ve got to lick your wounds and figure out how to move from that. If you look at it and lose confidence with it, that’s when it really gets tough. But if you look at it like, ‘This is what I need to work on. This is evident. Attack this and get better.’
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“For everybody that’s in this building, the way you come and prepare and compete every day, you’ve got to look at it almost as everyone’s wearing a blank jersey. You have to have the confidence that, ‘Hey, I know I can play.’ Whether it’s for this team or another team doesn’t matter. If you’re a good player in this game, someone’s going to find a spot for you. That’s what anybody can hammer into their head.”
What made it even more challenging for Davis was the instant success 2023 No. 1 overall pick Paul Skenes had with the Pirates last season, when he started for the National League in the All-Star Game, won NL rookie of the year honors and finished third in NL Cy Young voting.
“Even thinking to what Paul did this past year, you do anything you can to make this a destination that other teams want to come to,” Davis said. “We feel it. This is an organization where the fans really are committed, and we have not produced to the level that they expect. That’s the truth.”
Where the Pirates brought Skenes along in a methodical manner, they fast-tracked Davis. The 6-foot-1, 225-pounder moved from catcher to right field and started 49 games there, hitting seven home runs with 24 RBIs in 62 games but looked lost in the outfield. Davis returned behind the plate last year and started Opening Day, only to bat .144 in 37 games in the majors last year. That caused him to start tinkering.
“I couldn’t accept that sometimes it’s going to be hard. I was always looking for, like, ‘It can’t be. What am I doing?’” Davis said. “That’s a part of trying to be a confident player. As I mature and grow, those are the lessons I’d rather learn early in my career. … I’ve got to take those lessons and apply it to this year. I’m definitely thankful for that lesson and to be able to put those roots down deep.”
‘Still making that bet’
The Pirates point to Davis’ dominance at the plate in every level of the minor leagues, including his .307/.401/.555 slash line with 13 homers and 43 RBIs in 57 games at Triple-A Indianapolis last season.
“It’s rare the occasion when a player just takes a straight line to the big leagues and becomes a star and they never look back,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said. “In a lot of cases, there’s twists and turns and ups and downs — and he’s gone through some of that. We believe he’ll be better from going through that. The same reasons that we would bet on him coming out of the draft — the skills, the work ethic, the willingness to take on a challenge, the toughness — all of those things are still there. We’re still making that bet.”
And Davis is still betting on himself. A fastball hitter at every step who batted .123 against heaters and .138 against breaking pitches last year, he realizes that he tried to cover too much of the plate. The lesson? Remain committed to one thing and focus on doing what he does best.
“There were times in ’23 that I really struggled with the breaking ball,” Davis said. “Sometimes, there just needs to be minor adjustments instead of trying to be a breaking ball hitter, if that makes sense. You can’t pursue a weakness at the expense of your strength.”
To that end, Davis is laser-focused on developing as both a backstop and a batter. The Pirates are impressed with his mindset, with Shelton crediting Davis for showing “outstanding” self-awareness and evaluation early in camp and not trying to do too much.
“I’m putting 100% effort into being the best player I can be every day. Everything else will take care of itself,” Davis said. “One thing that I kind of regret that I went about last spring is, ‘I have to be flawless. I have to be able to make the team.’ It almost burns out your energy for your actual goals. My goal is to be the best player I can be, to find out how good I can be and to be the best teammate. That lasts over the course of the season with a steady burn instead of emptying the tank every single day. At times, it’s what feels good as a player — to feel like you’re leaving it all out there — but to keep that steady growth is going to be more beneficial.”
So Davis is canceling out the noise and taking his cuts. He started at catcher and batted third for the Pirates in their Grapefruit League opener against the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday in Sarasota, hitting a two-out double and scoring a run in the first inning and throwing out Enrique Bradfield Jr. attempting to steal second base in the third inning.
It represented a strong start to spring training for Davis, who knows his work isn’t done.
“This jump, however long it takes me to make it,” he said, “I’m never going to stop working towards it.”