Kovacevic: Why won't the Pirates let Davis catch?

MILWAUKEE -- "I get excited about a lot of the prospects the Pirates have," one professional prospect analyst was sharing with me here last night at American Family Field. "And then they call them up."

Yep. And then they surge for a spell, then they sour, then they're sent back. Happened again earlier on this day with Nick Gonzales.

It's almost as if they aren't very good at this.

As if they've currently got a No. 1 overall pick at catcher instead doing this in the 14-1 loss to the Brewers last night:

Poor Henry Davis, who didn't get significant outfield reps until well into this summer despite everyone everywhere realizing he might be needed at another position in 2023, was spun like a top on that Joey Wiemer double. (Not to be ignored, though, is the outrageous throw that found Endy Rodriguez's mitt on the fly all the way from South Dakota.)

There's no reason for this. There's no reason for Davis to not be behind the plate. There's no reason for Jason Delay to be on the roster. There's no reason for management to pretend that the remainder of this season matters when management didn't bother pretending it mattered when the Pirates started out 20-8.

So, why isn't Davis back there?

Well, part of the answer is that he legitimately has room to improve back there. His throwing, obviously, will be a strength, but his receiving and game-calling would get exposed over a long season. Scouts from other teams concur, so it's not just the Pirates seeing this.

But the other part of the answer is that Ben Cherington's known to have a way-higher-than-the-norm bar for defense from his catchers. To the extreme that, ever since he became GM, he's routinely rolled very little other than .180-type hitters into Bradenton each spring, not worried at all about their offense and locked instead on how they'll handle a pitching staff. And on that count, very few baseball people outside the Pirates' organization will concur.

The positive: Davis continues to catch before games, as he did again here yesterday. That's how I snapped the photo of him that's part of the Insider montage above. He then stripped the gear, grabbed his outfield glove and got back to his day job.

Another positive: He caught the eighth inning, with the Pirates down 13 runs and our planet presumably safe from the meteor strike sure to follow his catching a game so unimportant to the visitors it'd scarcely qualify for Grapefruit status.

Also, this was the very first pitch he caught:

Nifty framing there. Bought Colin Holderman a strike.

Didn't notice any meteors, either.

MORE PIRATES

• No one fears getting fired. I've been around when they do. This ain't it.

• Found it stunning that Carlos Santana would blurt out, on the record, that he'd love to return to the Pirates, as he did here yesterday. He did so in the Milwaukee clubhouse and only after taking an extra second to don his Brewers cap, but he knew what he was doing. Moreover, he mentioned that he'd be training this winter with Oneil Cruz in Tampa, Fla., further attaching himself to his previous employer. Just saying, I don't think any of this was an accident.

• A lot of the Latin American players in the Pirates' world love Santana, but no one like Cruz. He began texting Santana the moment the visitors' bus rolled onto the complex.

• Quinn Priester, tonight's starter, told me yesterday his early problems have been mostly about elevating pitches he normally doesn't elevate, notably his two-seamer. Look from him to try to pound the ball at the Brewers' knees in this one, and to keep doing it from there.

• No one's speaking so much as a syllable about Roansy Contreras. Including when asked.

• Take this for what it's worth, but there was a time when the people running the Pirates didn't appreciate that the outspoken likes of Neil Walker, A.J. Burnett, Travis Snider and a few others set the tone for a real hunger for winning. Those guys and a handful of others pushed and prodded Neal Huntington, even Bob Nutting, to make things happen toward trying to win it all. Santana, Rich Hill and Ji-Man Choi are made of similar stuff, and they all just went poof.

STEELERS

• One big reason, I'm told, that management signed Allen Robinson was that Frisman Jackson, the wide receivers coach, wasn't controlling his room. There was no elaboration with this information. But, and I'd presume this is related, Robinson's offered a front-and-center leadership presence throughout this early stage of training camp. (As has Diontae Johnson, by the way.)

• The late Darryl Drake remains so very much missed, and that includes his larger-than-life football presence. A week from today, it'll be four years since his passing at Saint Vincent College.

• There are those within the fold who feel Omar Khan doesn't get enough credit for trading Chase Claypool when he did. I'm inclined to agree. It's easy after the fact to see that Claypool for Joey Porter Jr. will work out wonderfully for the Steelers. But Khan's in-season shipping out of a starter for a draft pick wasn't one we'd seen from the Steelers ... like, ever.

• Elandon Roberts has been getting on some offensive players' nerves at camp. Which is OK. Been too long since anyone at Roberts' position got on anyone's nerves other than their own coaches. That room needed more Vince Williams, and it's now got an overflow.

• Why isn't Benny Snell being welcomed back even as he's still poking around in other camps? I'm told it's money.

• Also, it's Anthony McFarland. He's been in the primary offensive plan for months. Only heard that this week. Found it surprising but plainly supported by his usage in camp so far. He's the crystal-clear RB3.

PENGUINS

• This might appear to be a deadline weekend of sorts in the Penguins' pursuit of Erik Karlsson. It's close to inconceivable they could pull off a trade unless both of Jeff Petry and Mikael Granlund go to San Jose, for cap purposes alone. But tomorrow opens the final window to buy out Granlund and, at the risk of being repetitive, I'll remind that I was told shortly after Kyle Dubas' hiring that the team's intention at the time was to buy out Granlund. It'll have to be one or the other.

• Mike Sullivan was consulted on Ron Hextall's acquisition of Granlund in the same way that you and I were consulted on it.

• A Toronto colleague tells me Dubas tends to zero in on targets, similar to how he outmaneuvered everyone to land Ryan O'Reilly from St. Louis at the past deadline. But he also believes in hanging on until any deadline to make his best offer, and he won't worry if someone else beats him in the interim.

• Dubas naming himself GM yesterday would qualify as the ultimate power move in franchise history if there wasn't a certain center who once named himself owner ... then became a center again ... then sold the whole operation for a gazillion dollars and endless golf.