BRADENTON, Fla. — Since selecting Henry Davis with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 MLB Draft, the Pirates have raved about his obsessive work ethic and effort to improve both at and behind the plate.
Davis knows he’s a better hitter than his batting average suggests. Given that the Pittsburgh Pirates catcher hit .167 last season, he also knows that’s not saying much.
The Pirates believe that Davis can live up to his draft billing as the best hitter in college baseball, even if his dominance at the plate in the minor leagues hasn’t translated to the majors. Where he’s had a .316/.417/.548 slash line with 21 doubles, 15 home runs and 50 RBIs in 79 games at Triple-A Indianapolis, Davis is a career .181 hitter with 21 doubles, 15 homers and 51 RBIs in 186 games for the Pirates.
Instead of guessing, Davis dived deep into his biomechanics — with help from both the Pirates and an external source — to find out what he does well and, more importantly, what he was doing wrong.
“You can get a little lost looking at an iPad or looking at a side profile of a swing — I think I can drive myself crazy looking at that — but keeping my weight in a spot where I can use the whole field and staying in the zone a long time, I know what those check points are day to day,” Davis told TribLive. “I’ll go take 500 swings trying to figure it out and it doesn’t really matter if I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. …
“I’m a player that’s going to do whatever it takes but having the actual information of what made me the first overall pick, what makes me such a good hitter and really trying to buy into that, I was much further from that than I thought at any point last year. I think I really thought I was close, and I wasn’t.”
Davis knows that PNC Park is not conducive for a right-handed hitter to produce power numbers, so he spent the offseason revamping a swing that drove 43.6% of his batted balls to the pull side. All seven of his home runs were to left field or left-center last season, and his expected homers would have doubled at Dodger Stadium and been in the double digits at three of the National League Central opponents’ parks.
Changes in his stance were obvious in batting practice in the first two days of spring training. He’s more upright and keeps his hands off his shoulders, which former Pirates catcher and SportsNet Pittsburgh analyst Michael McKenry predicted “will make him more direct to the ball and most certainly help him with the high spin and velo.” The biomechanics report showed Davis the force he puts into the ground.
“I think sometimes if I start with my weight too far back, my leg will press real hard into the ground and spin to the left. That’s why everybody says it looks like I’m trying to pull,” Davis said. “Obviously, I’m not trying to do that, but your back leg is your gas pedal and I’m super lower-half dominant, so it’s understanding how hitters built like me perform at the highest level. At times, I had little stints where I could get away with good hand-eye, but being in a spot mechanically where I’m going to be one of the best hitters in the game, that’s the goal.”
Davis knows he has far to go to accomplish that goal. But he also knows how far he’s come. The Pirates weren’t convinced that Davis could catch at the major league level but wanted his bat in the lineup in 2023, so they promoted him to play in right field. He had 10 doubles and seven homers with 24 RBIs in 62 games, becoming the first player in the majors to homer twice in one game off Shohei Ohtani.
But Davis has developed into a strong defender behind the dish, one who ranks in the 91st percentile in pop time (1.89 seconds) and improved from minus-4 defensive runs saved in 2024 to plus-8 DRS last season. After starting the season in the minors, he earned the trust of Paul Skenes to become the National League Cy Young winner’s personal catcher over his final 28 starts and eventually split time with Joey Bart.
Davis was proud to receive NL Gold Glove votes. Pirates general manager Ben Cherington credited him for impacting the game defensively, and believes Davis can do the same on the offensive side.
“That’s been a transformation. To his credit he’s worked his tail off at it, become a really good defensive player,” Cherington said. “There is a history of offense there in the minor leagues; it’s just hasn’t matriculated at the major league level yet. The good news is he’s gone into an offseason for the first time, this past offseason, with a full clarity of that. He’s basically had a full major league season worth of feedback. When Henry gets feedback and he’s focused on doing something about it, usually, good things happen.”
Having the biomechanics data, delivered from the Pirates through hitting coach Matt Hague, taught Davis the importance of balance. He acknowledges that the more information he has, the more he will try to incorporate all of it. Davis wants to simplify his stance and swing, keep his body in a neutral position and drive through the ball out in front instead of chopping it down the third base line.
“They showed me something where I had 90% of my weight on my back side,” Davis said. “I had no (expletive) idea. No idea. I’m just trying to hit and do the best I can and make adjustments. I can get down on the front side and make a cleaner move on the ball. They do a good job explaining it. I think it’s a work in progress. Now I can stay relaxed.”
Where Davis said his scuffles once would have driven Hague crazy, causing him to watch video to figure out how to fix the swing without knowing what was wrong, the biomechanical breakdown allows Davis to make much quicker adjustments.
“There’s no ‘could be.’ This is what we have to do,” Davis said. “Put it in front of me and I’ll get it done.”
Pirates manager Don Kelly called Davis’ batting practice Thursday “awesome,” noting that he was hitting line drives opposite field to right-center before blasting “an absolute bomb” to left.
“He’s doing a great job of making the adjustments, staying within himself and working on the things that he needs to work on to get better offensively,” Kelly said. “I would not bet against Henry Davis in anything when he is committed to something. He put a lot of work in in the offseason to work on his offense and continue to get better.”