Pirates All 40: What’s the Path Forward for Jason Delay?

This is one in a series of stories breaking down members of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 40-man roster.

Catchers are one of the most interesting position groups on the Pirates as we look to the 2025 MLB season, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing for the players involved.

Jason Delay broke camp with the Pirates this past season after a spring training injury to Yasmani Grandal, but the door didn’t stay open for long: he played in only one big league game before a meniscus injury and its subsequent surgery and rehab sidelined him for the better part of three months.

The 29-year-old backstop debuted in June 2022 and played 57 games that season, then outcompeted Henry Davis and Austin Hedges for playing time in 2023, nabbing a plurality with 70 games played. He only appeared in seven games in 2024, though, as the Pirates optioned him to Triple-A Indianapolis shortly after he made his way off the injured list. With Endy Rodríguez back healthy and the rise of Joey Bart, who the Pirates picked up via trade after Delay went down—along with a potential make or break season for Davis, the first overall pick in the 2021 draft—Delay could quickly end up on the outside looking in.

The Pirates can still option him to Triple-A twice, but if they need to open a spot on the 40-man roster—which they will at some point this offseason—Delay will almost certainly be one of the first names under the microscope.

His saving grace could be that Rodríguez and Davis haven’t yet lived up to their hype as prospects, while Bart’s strong 2024 is a painfully small sample size for the Pirates to put full trust in him moving forward… but with just two home runs and a .231/.295/.315 slash line through 134 games, Delay’s résumé won’t do him any favors either.