{"id":359468,"date":"2025-12-20T05:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T05:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/359468\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T05:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T05:59:07","slug":"phillies-evaluating-catching-trade-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/359468\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Evaluating Catching Trade Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Phillies have prioritized reunions with Kyle Schwarber<\/a> and\u00a0J.T. Realmuto<\/a>. They succeeded in bringing back the MVP runner-up on a five-year deal<\/a> at the Winter Meetings. Realmuto\u2019s free agency has been more extended, leaving the Phils in a holding pattern behind the plate.<\/p>\n

While a reunion with their longtime catcher remains the priority, Matt Gelb of The Athletic<\/a> writes that it\u2019s not a lock to come to fruition. The sides obviously have yet to align on contract terms despite Philadelphia\u2019s willingness to offer multiple years. Gelb writes that the Phillies have been involved in trade conversations about potential alternatives. Although there\u2019s no indication anything is close on that front, that highlights the biggest question for the front office.<\/p>\n

Aside from Realmuto, the free agent catching market is bleak.\u00a0Danny Jansen<\/a> is off the board on a two-year deal with Texas.\u00a0Victor Caratini<\/a> is the only other potential starting option, and he has been more of a high-end #2 catcher over the course of his career. Everyone else is a backup or organizational depth type.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also true of the two catchers currently on Philly\u2019s roster, Rafael March\u00e1n<\/a> and\u00a0Garrett Stubbs<\/a>. March\u00e1n was a promising enough prospect that it isn\u2019t out of the question that he could be a solid glove-first starter if given the opportunity. That\u2019d be a gamble for a win-now team, though, and clubs are sometimes reluctant to upgrade the position at the trade deadline because of the adjustment of learning a pitching staff in the middle of a pennant race. The worst case scenario for the Phils is that they wait out Realmuto\u2019s market but get outbid after Caratini has already signed elsewhere. That\u2019d leave them with little choice but to turn to the trade market.<\/p>\n

At the same time, they\u2019re probably reluctant to make a trade while Realmuto is still a free agent. March\u00e1n and Stubbs are both out of minor league options. They\u2019re already likely to expose one of them to waivers before Opening Day. Trading for a catcher and re-signing Realmuto could mean losing both of them, as there\u2019s a good chance another team would claim March\u00e1n. Realmuto\u2019s heavy workloads don\u2019t leave much playing time for his backup, so that\u2019s not an ideal use of resources.<\/p>\n

The Phils\u2019 trade conversations may be due diligence for now. They still seem likelier than not to figure something out with Realmuto. If that doesn\u2019t come together, speculative trade options include\u00a0Pedro Pag\u00e9s<\/a>,\u00a0J.C. Escarra<\/a>,\u00a0Connor Wong<\/a> and\u00a0Jose Trevino<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Phillies have prioritized reunions with Kyle Schwarber and\u00a0J.T. Realmuto. They succeeded in bringing back the MVP runner-up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[28641,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-359468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-j-t-realmuto","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}