{"id":95671,"date":"2025-02-14T11:47:50","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T16:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=95671"},"modified":"2025-02-14T11:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T16:48:09","slug":"realmuto-likely-extension-depth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/02\/14\/realmuto-likely-extension-depth\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Catcher Likely To Get Extension Due To Limited Depth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto is viewed by Mark Feinsand of MLB.com as a top extension candidate<\/a> as spring training begins. Realmuto is in a contract year in 2025. Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that<\/a> Realmuto is willing to sign a new contract. Realmuto, entering his age-34 season, is heading into his seventh season with the Phillies. Prior to the 2019 season, the Phillies acquired Realmuto from the Miami Marlins in one of their best trades<\/a> in recent years. Realmuto spent five seasons with the Marlins. Prior to the 2021 season, Realmuto signed a 5-year and $115 million dollar extension with the Phillies. Realmuto is entering the last year of that deal. There is some deferred money on that contract as well.<\/p>\n

Realmuto has a .266\/.331\/.463 line with 109 home runs and 382 RBI in 699 games with the Phillies. Additionally, Realmuto has a 114 OPS+ and a 22.4 bWAR with the Phillies. Two of the three All-Star appearances Realmuto has have come with the Phillies. In 2019, Realmuto won a Silver Slugger Award in his first season with the team. Additionally, Realmuto won a Gold Glove Award in 2019 and 2022. Realmuto also finished in the Top 1o in NL MVP voting in 2022. That season, Realmuto recorded a 20-20 season and a career-best 130 OPS+ and 6.6 bWAR that season. He led the majors in games caught in the 2022 and 2023 seasons while leading the NL in 2021. Realmuto has had a 2.9% cWPA in the postseason across the last three seasons.<\/p>\n

Realmuto Will Probably Receive An Extension From The Phillies<\/h2>\n

Alternative Options At Catcher<\/h3>\n

Realmuto is probably going to receive a short-term extension. Eduardo Tait, the Phillies top-catching prospect, is still a few years away from reaching the majors. Tait is still the Phillies catcher of the future<\/a> but is not quite ready to step in yet. Garrett Stubbs and Rafael March\u00e1n are not quite starting-caliber catchers. Realmuto receiving an extension from the Phillies will allow for Tait to develop while maintaining stability at catcher. Caleb Ricketts is the Phillies second-best catching prospect, and he is 24 and yet to play above Double-A. Realmuto is also a better option than whatever free agents there might be available at the catcher position next offseason. This has impacted the Phillies efforts to reduce the catching workload<\/a> for Realmuto this season.<\/p>\n

Payroll Considerations<\/h3>\n

Feinsand also mentioned Phillies designated hitter Kyle Schwarber as an extension candidate. Schwarber should receive a contract extension<\/a> during spring training. While the Phillies have a top payroll, making room to extend Realmuto and Schwarber should not be a major issue. Realmuto will probably need to agree to take a pay cut from the $23.875 million he is scheduled to earn this year. That said, Realmuto will probably remain one of baseball’s highest-paid catchers. Five catchers are set to make more than $10 million this season according to Spotrac<\/a> data. Realmuto has the top 2025 salary among those five catchers. Salvador Perez is the lone catcher besides Realmuto to be scheduled to earn more than $20 million this season.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credits: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philadelphia Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto is viewed by Mark Feinsand of MLB.com as a top extension candidate as spring training begins. Realmuto is in a contract year in 2025. Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Realmuto is willing to sign a new contract. Realmuto, entering his age-34 season, is heading into his seventh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4566,"featured_media":95678,"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":[28358,469,516,28359,527],"class_list":["post-95671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phillies","category-mlb","tag-garrett-stubbs","tag-j-t-realmuto","tag-kyle-schwarber","tag-rafael-marchan","tag-salvador-perez"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95671","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=95671"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95680,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95671\/revisions\/95680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}