Last week some fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates were caught by surprise when the team acquired catcher Joey Bart from the San Francisco Giants. At the time the team had Henry Davis primarily behind the dish with Jason Delay backing him up. While Davis has gotten off to a tough start at the plate, there was no reason to think that he was being replaced. Although some fans were concerned that he was heading back to the outfield.

As it turns out Jason Delay was the one who was being replaced. Delay was placed on the 10-day injured list with right knee inflammation. Still, to make a trade for a former #2 overall pick seemed aggressive. Well, now fans of the Pirates have more clarification thanks to Pirates beat writer Alex Stumpf of mlb.com. Stumpf posted on X:

Delay is being completely shut down from Baseball activity. This most likely means the 10-day injured list is a temporary placeholder until they find out more details on what is going on. This most likely also means that the team is preparing to be without Delay for the long haul.

Grandal sounds like he is semi-close to returning. It is potentially going to be an interesting predicament for the Pirates. Joey Bart has looked pretty solid so far, albeit with a small sample size. They also traded for him, giving up an 8th-round pick from their 2023 Draft class. So Bart does not seem like someone who they are just going to cut.

Could the Pittsburgh Pirates actually keep three catchers on the roster?

Potentially, they have done this in the past before. So if Bart keeps it up then they likely will not want to move on from him. The other issue is that Bart is out of options meaning he can not be sent down without passing through waivers.