{"id":112342,"date":"2026-01-16T14:42:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T19:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=112342"},"modified":"2026-01-16T14:43:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T19:43:04","slug":"phillies-re-sign-catcher-realmuto-per-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/01\/16\/phillies-re-sign-catcher-realmuto-per-reports\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Phillies Re-Sign Catcher J.T. Realmuto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Philadelphia Phillies have decided to re-sign catcher <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/realmjt01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">J.T. Realmuto<\/a> on a three-year, $45 million deal, according to multiple reports. Ken Rosenthal and Matt Gelb of The Athletic were the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6814376\/2026\/01\/16\/phillies-jt-realmuto-mlb-free-agency\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">first to report<\/a> that a deal was close. Jeff Passan of ESPN reported the news of the signing with contract terms while live on &#8220;The Pat McAfee Show&#8221; while talking about other baseball topics. Robert Murray of FanSided reported Realmuto could make up to $60 million with incentives. This comes shortly after the rival New York Mets <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/01\/16\/mets-strike-back-sign-bo-bichette-to-126m-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">signed free agent infielder<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bichebo01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bo Bichette<\/a>. The Phillies were considered a favorite to sign Bichette.<\/p>\n<p>After the Bichette signing, this was the next move. Realmuto, along with <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/schwaky01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyle Schwarber<\/a> have re-signed with the Phillies. Meanwhile, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/suarera01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ranger Su\u00e1rez<\/a> has <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/01\/14\/breaking-ranger-suarez-signs-with-the-boston-red-sox\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">reportedly signed<\/a> with the Boston Red Sox. Su\u00e1rez signing elsewhere is not a surprise, given that the Phillies have Andrew Painter ready to join the rotation. With Realmuto re-signing, the Phillies will likely have <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/stubbga01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Garrett Stubbs<\/a> and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/marchra01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rafael March\u00e1n<\/a> compete in Spring Training for the backup job. Stubbs and March\u00e1n are both out of minor league options. However, Stubbs is on a split contract, which means March\u00e1n likely gets to back up Realmuto again.<\/p>\n<h2>Phillies Re-Sign Catcher Realmuto<\/h2>\n<h3>What This Means For The Team<\/h3>\n<p>Heading into his age-35 season, Realmuto will remain the Phillies&#8217; catcher. Realmuto getting a three-year deal at that age as a catcher is somewhat surprising. However, Realmuto has caught the most innings and games of any catcher since he joined the Phillies in 2019. Realmuto had a .257\/.315\/.384 line with 12 home runs and 52 RBI in 134 games last season. Furthermore, Realmuto recorded a 94 wRC+, his second-worst in a season where he played at least 100 games, and a .321 BABIP in 2025.\u00a0 Realmuto has been declining offensively over the last few seasons. 2022 is the most recent season where Realmuto had a 110 wRC+ or better and an .800 OPS or better. Realmuto&#8217;s importance to the Phillies&#8217; pitching staff can&#8217;t be overstated, though.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Philadelphia Phillies have decided to re-sign catcher J.T. Realmuto on a three-year, $45 million deal, according to multiple reports. Ken Rosenthal and Matt Gelb of The Athletic were the first to report that a deal was close. Jeff Passan of ESPN reported the news of the signing with contract terms while live on &#8220;The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4566,"featured_media":111954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1071],"tags":[4784,1608,28358,2268,516,28359,3009],"class_list":["post-112342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phillies","category-mlb","tag-andrew-painter","tag-bo-bichette","tag-garrett-stubbs","tag-jt-realmuto","tag-kyle-schwarber","tag-rafael-marchan","tag-ranger-suarez"],"modified_by":"Augustus Oswald, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112342"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112363,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112342\/revisions\/112363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}