SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- From the moment it was put in place, the succession plan seemed perfect on paper.
The Giants took Joey Bart with the second overall pick in the draft during a summer when Buster Posey was still just 31 years old and en route to a fourth straight All-Star appearance. It was a pick that had been rumored for weeks, and on that June night in 2018, Bart said Posey was one of his favorite players growing up. He said he had hoped the Giants rumors were true, because that's where he wanted to be.
"Everything worked out," Bart said back then.
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After the pick, however, just about nothing went according to plan.
Bart's first full professional season was heavily impacted by injuries. A pandemic arrived the next year, and as Bart slugged his way into the conversation to back up Posey, the veteran shockingly opted out of the season.
Bart was forced into the starting role much earlier than expected, and he arrived without Posey in the clubhouse. Bart spent the following season back in Triple-A, working to gain the experience that he didn't get before that 2020 cameo, and he showed so much growth that it seemed 2022 would finally bring a Posey-Bart pairing.
As planned, the Giants would have a 35-year-old catcher still playing well, and a young option ready to keep it going for the next decade. And then Posey retired.
San Francisco Giants
After years of speculation about how playing time would one day be split up between the two, Posey and Bart spent a grand total of two days together on the active roster. Bart has already played in 35 big league games, but none with Posey also in the lineup.
The way everything has worked out has been a surprise to just about everyone, but not Bart himself.
"To be honest with you, I probably saw that coming," he said earlier this month. "At the end of the day, I got drafted into a team where Buster Posey was the catcher. There's a lot of pros to that. I learned a lot, but at the end of the day it was always his job. It was always his time to choose how long he wanted to play. All I could do was sit back and try to soak up as much as I could and learn, so maybe one time when I had the opportunity, I could pounce on it."
The Giants envisioned Bart teaming with Posey at some point to form the game's best catching duo, and then wrestling at-bats away over time, as Bart hit his prime and Posey his late thirties. Instead, Bart arrived in camp this year as the favorite to be the Opening Day starter and primary catcher, but he'll still have to pounce if he wants every opportunity.
Manager Gabe Kapler has made it clear that this isn't a straight succession. Bart and Curt Casali came into camp competing for playing time.
"We'll think about some sort of split that makes sense for both of them and keeps them both healthy," Kapler said. "You're going to hear me talk about workload management all year and we learned so much from last year and how we treated Buster. Curt is a catcher who has a little bit more wear and tear than Joey does and we're going to be cognizant of not overdoing it with him.
"In camp we're going to learn a lot about the performances and what sort of shape they're in and what they can handle. There's going to be some competition on the field here and that's great for Curt, for Joey, and for the Giants."
In Kapler's words, Casali showed up to Scottsdale "jacked," and the staff is hopeful he can find the swing that was so dangerous at times when he was in Cincinnati. Bart is one of the stronger players on the roster, and Casali joked that the Giants would replace Posey by having two physically imposing catchers.
The Giants have never had any doubt about Bart's power at the plate or arm behind it. What they wanted to see after that 2020 season was growth behind the scenes, and Kapler said pitchers raved about Bart's work in Sacramento during their exit interviews last season.
"He's done a really nice job over the last year of improving his preparation, improving his game-calling," Kapler said. "His trustworthiness has dramatically improved over the last two calendar years and that's through the work he's done."
Bart came into camp with a leg up after catching Alex Wood throughout the lockout, and he hit the ground running in Scottsdale, so much so that coaches actually had to pull him back at times and keep him from catching so many bullpen sessions. Bart has seemed more confident and comfortable, and that has shown throughout workouts and games.
"Every year you grow. You have to. You either grow or someone outgrows you, right?" he said. "You have to keep adapting and building relationships. I don't play a position where I don't really have to worry about anything other than hitting. I'm so locked in on what's going on -- I have to be, it's my job, so any conversations I can have with guys to try and figure out what's going on to make them the best are the ones I want to have."
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Bart is technically still a rookie, but he re-arrives with 117 career plate appearances. He hit just .233 without a homer in 2020, but the at-bats were better in Triple-A last year. Bart had a .294/.358.472 slash line for the River Cats and said he was pretty happy with his work at the plate.
The Giants won't throw Bart into the heart of their lineup right away but they are open-minded, particularly against left-handed pitchers. For now, they're hoping Bart can just help keep the momentum going.
There is no replacing Posey -- Kapler mentioned early that there's no Buster Posey Version Two ever coming down the line -- but the Giants should have one of the best pitching staffs in baseball and they're counting on Bart and Casali to help lead the way in their NL West title defense.
That's another way the succession plan changed over time.
When Bart was drafted, the organization was coming off 98 losses. He arrived in 2020 in an uncertain first year for a new regime, but two years later Bart will help lead the charge for a team that just won 107 games. His face lit up when asked about how things have changed. He said he hasn't been on a really good team since high school.
"Everyone knows coming into this season that we're going to be tough to beat," he said. "You're going to have to bring it every day to beat us, and there's not a better feeling than being on that team instead of another team that might be chasing someone. It's never fun to chase."