The San Francisco Giants have traded catcher Joey Bart of Buford, Georgia to the Pittsburgh Pirates for minor league right handed pitcher Austin Strickland of Winchester, Ohio on Tuesday according to Mark Polishuk of MLB Trade Rumors. Bart has spent the last four seasons with the Giants, and now joins a team undefeated to start the 2024 Major League Baseball regular season.
Bart’s 2023 MLB Statistics
Bart batted .207 with zero home runs and five runs batted in during 2023. In 30 games, 87 at bats and 95 plate appearances, Bart scored nine runs, and had 18 hits, five doubles, three walks, 23 total bases, one sacrifice fly, an on base percentage of .263, and a slugging percentage of .264. Bart’s sacrifice fly was the first of his Major League Baseball career, and came in an 8-2 Giants loss to the Chicago Cubs on September 6.
Multi-hit game in Giants win
Bart had four games with two hits this past season. The first three two-hit games came in Giants’s losses to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Detroit Tigers and Miami Marlins. The fourth multi-hit game came on May 3 in a 4-2 Giants win over the Houston Astros in interleague action. Bart had one double and one single.
Second Overall Pick in 2018
Bart was initially drafted in the 27th round in the 2015 Major League Baseball Amateur Draft by the Tampa Bay Rays. At the time, Tampa Bay selected Bart out of Buford High School. However, Bart attended the Georgia Institute of Technology instead, and was selected second overall by the Giants in the 2018 MLB Amateur Draft. The only player drafted ahead of Bart was Detroit Tigers pitcher Casey Mize of Springville, Alabama.
Austin Strickland
Strickland has spent the last three seasons pitching for Kentucky in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I. However in 2022 and 2023, Strickland did not pitch well. He had a terrible earned run average of 6.85 in 2022, and was at 5.04 in 2023.
View the original article on Pirates Breakdown: Giants trade catcher Joey Bart to the Pirates
