Veteran San Francisco Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow played 14 MLB seasons, and he knows the 162-game schedule can wear down players.
He said it happened to one of the Giants’ better players last year, catcher Patrick Bailey.
In his weekly appearance on KNBR’s Murph & Markus morning show last week, Krukow said Bailey looked “gassed” late last season.
“No position gets more exposed for a guy hitting the fatigue factor more than a catcher,” Krukow said (via SFGate.com). “And I thought last year, he was gassed, and it really showed. And it showed not just in his at-bats; it showed in his defense.”
Bailey won a Gold Glove in 2024 in his second MLB season, and he started strong at the plate, with a .781 OPS before the All-Star break. But he hit only .170 with one home run in the second half, with a .433 OPS. Krukow said he wants to see Bailey put together an entire season. That starts with being in better shape.
“But now you’ve got to be able to do it for six and seven months, and that’s something that I hope he learned last year, that he wasn’t ready to go in the sixth month,” Krukow said. “I don’t know what they would have done had they gotten to the seventh month. He was gassed. I want to see him in better shape.”
That’s not an unreasonable observation by Krukow.
The Giants have high expectations for Bailey. If he can, as Krukow said, avoid getting “gassed,” he’s a Gold Glove-caliber catcher with some pop in his bat, a rare commodity.
A BOLD prediction for 2025? Patrick Bailey cements himself as a top 3 catcher in MLB. pic.twitter.com/D0CJKviQxX
— Sam Fosberg (@discussbaseball) January 28, 2025
