Blake Sabol #2

Born in Laguna Hills, CA, which is located in south Orange County in Southern California...Sabol attended Aliso Niguel High School in California where he had a .338 average with 11 home runs, 73 RBI and a .418 on-base percentage in 126 career games. In 2015, Sabol was rated as the No. 64 player in the nation in his class and seventh-best catcher by Perfect Game...Won a gold medal at the Pan Am Games in Colombia with Team USA’s U15 squad in 2013, hitting .409 in 11 games. Was teammates with the White Sox Andrew Vaughn and former first overall pick Mickey Moniak...Also competed in the 2014 U17 Team USA National Team Development Program where he was the MVP. He was also a two-time trials participant for the U18 squad...Originally selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the seventh round of the 2019 First-Year Player Draft out of USC...Attended USC and spent three years with the Trojans before being drafted. Sabol hit .268 with eight doubles, three triples, three homers and 22 RBI in 55 games as a junior...Sabol’s second cousin is former USC Trojan and Pittsburgh Steeler Troy Polamalu. Blake’s mom used to babysit Troy...Sabol’s father, Rob, played baseball during his college days at Long Beach State. Rob was an outfielder...Sabol has two brothers, Stefan and Jarrett. Stefan was drafted by the Mets in the 2012 draft out of Oregon and played five years in the minors, mainly as an outfielder...Stefan and Michael Lorenzen are the same age and Blake was a bat boy on Lorenzen’s travel ball teams as a kid...Blake and Lorenzen have worked out together in the offseason and Stefan credits him with helping him get acclimated to being around Major Leaguers...Some of Sabol’s other workout partners in the offseason have included Noah Syndergaard and Albert Pujols...After Sabol signed in contract at PNC Park after being drafted by the Pirates in 2019, he went out to dinner with one of his best friends from college, NFL wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster...Is half Samoan and told reporters in Scottsdale this spring he’s hoping that he can catch Sean Manaea in a Major League game, which would make an all-Samoan battery...Is planning to have his mom cook some authentic Samoan food for Manaea this spring since he never had it growing up in Indiana.

2022

Spent a majority of the season at Double-A Altoona in the Pirates organization before a late-season promotion to Triple-A Indianapolis...In 98 games with the Curve, Sabol slashed .281/.347/.486 with 23 doubles, five triples, 14 homers, 60 RBI, nine steals and an. .833 OPS...Had only one down month offensively at the plate (June when he slashed .213/.286/.400) but otherwise enjoyed a solid campaign in Double-A…he slashed .278/.337/.494 in 20 July games before going .329/.364/.544 in 21 August games with Altoona before his promotion to Triple-A...Played mostly catcher with the Curve, appearing in 58 games there…also saw action in left field (nine games), right field (one game) and DH (29 games)…His time defensively was more evenly split in Triple-A: eight games at catcher, 12 in left field and five at DH...Only caught 13.6 percent of base-stealers between Double and Triple-A last year (9-of-66)…After his promotion to Triple-A, Sabol put together a .296/.426/.543 slash line with nine extra-base hits, one steal and a .969 OPS in 25 games...Following the season he was selected by Cincinnati in the Major League phase of the Rule 5 draft on Dec. 8…was acquired by San Francisco hours later.