I think this is a part of the equation that people seem to forget when talking about his particular development. As we all know kids playing in the north have much less developmental time due to the fact they don't have the luxury of playing year around what with the weather factor. Then you get a kid who lost at least an entire year of HS (if not more) with a serious injury. Yet he still manages to play well enough in his senior year to garner enough attention to get drafted in the 1st round of the draft on his talent level alone.
So then he comes straight into pro ball vastly behind the curve developmentally, plays with 2 injured thumbs and does poorly and we are surprised by that?! Then skips an entire level that he obviously needed and held his own offensively IMO for a catcher who again shouldn't be at that level. Comes into this season and gets to work improving his defense and his plate discipline might I add by leaps and bounds at yet again another level he shouldn't quite be at and in an environment that supresses offense & some are questioning if he will be a bust?
Please people those are not excuses but extremely legitimate reasons why anyone would struggle to put up gargantuan numbers. When you are behind the curve from the start, challenged more than any prospect in recent memory at a position that is notoriously slow developmentally and you are still making positive strides. I'd say for the circumstances he is doing an excellent job of developing. IMO what we have here is a starting catcher in the making and I have yet to see any reasonable argument to the contrary.