Phillies Hot Stove, Winter 2023-24

[julio]

There will be a tipping point where JT will decline enough as a catcher that a decision will need to be made on a position change if we keep him.

A position change for JT really doesn’t make sense. His lifetime OPS+ is 112, and he slipped to 106 this past season. That’s not something you want at first base. That’s more or less Ricky Jordan (lifetime OPS+ of 103). JT’s value is as a catcher, period.

[zambonir]

Well, JT put up his career-best OPS+ as recently as last season (130) and also has seasons of 126 and 124 over the past six seasons. But is he likely to sniff that range again at 33 and 34? Probably not.

[Philsmania]

Realmuto is three years through a five-year contract. One more good season and it will be a great deal for the Phillies. Heck, once Sixto medically went south and Alfaro plateaued, the trade became a steal for us.

[Austinfan]

Sanchez was bad luck, but I always knew Alfaro had a low ceiling due to a complete lack of plate discipline.

The biggest problem with JT is we're loaded with $20+M contracts to players on the wrong side of the age curve.
Carrying his last couple years would be fine if we weren't also carrying Castellanos and Walker and hoping that Wheeler and Nola keep on keeping on.

[bkox]

That article talks so glowingly about Realmuto's 2022 season but they seem to forget that offensively he was terrible for the first 3 months. He didnt turn his year around until he was forced to take several days off because he wasnt allowed in Canada to play the BlueJays.

[andyb]

It is tricky in that Realmuto's durability (especially now) is a huge part of his value. Let's be honest about Stubbs. Apart from a hot month or two in 2022 he is really not very good. Playing an average catcher versus a below average one for an extra 20 games a year is valuable.

Sometimes you use up a catcher's good years and then they are pretty much done all of a sudden. Brian McCann became a part timer at age 33 even when he had a few years left on his big contract because he regressed defensively. Can Realmuto adapt and be a 750+ OPS guy at age 35 in a part time role? Guys with more power tend to have a better shot at that. Realmuto's athleticism is helping him stay behind the plate longer than most, but it may not help his mid-30s offense as much since he really does not have the extra power to spare that some catchers have when they lose some bat speed.

[bkeich]

Realmuto is an interesting older catcher. The assumption is always that the only positions for a catcher to move to are 1B and DH, but he could possibly be an exception. I wouldn’t discount the possibility that he could be an average (or slight below) at 3B, LF or RF. He is a very good athlete and even today still has above average speed.

If he can transition as he gets older to a backup catcher and respectable corner player he still has value.

[fish]

If not now, age will catch up with him, but Realmuto also plays through injury that you forget about- like the hand tendon surgery this spring, or a few years ago when he had a knee cleanup after the season ended, or the year he missed the last few weeks with a hip flexor. He stays on the field and doesn’t talk about his aches and pains, so who knows if his hand or something else impacted his performance, but it’s happened before.

[zambonir]

I don't think JT can play LF or 3B any better than Jake Cave or Kody Clemens either. Any of these positions are options if you want to get him upright for 10 or 20 games a year, but he's not going to start playing 50 or 80 or 100 games at another positon. He will still be more valuable as an 80-100 game catcher for another couple of three years after this contract. Just not for big money.

[BostonRoss]

It's rare that a good defensive catcher is moved to another position later in his career. The only one I can think of is Johnny Bench. He was moved to 1B at the end of April in his age 33 season, and played mostly 3B for the next two years, after which he retired at 35. Bench also happened to fall off dramatically on offense at the same time: 3.3 oWAR in his last year at catcher, 3.8 oWAR total in those last three years as a part-time player. He was not very good defensively at 1B or 3B.

The next best defensive catcher I could find who was moved was Yogi Berra. Yogi apparently was not as good defensively as JT: 9.2 dWAR in 14 years before he was moved to LF (JT has 8.9 dWAR in 9+ years, and has had three years with higher dWAR than Yogi's best year). Yogi was older than JT when he moved; in his age 35 year he played a third of his games in the outfield, and 85% of his games in the outfield the following year. Yogi actually had more games at catcher than outfield after that, but he was primarily a backup to Elston Howard.

The other catchers I can think of who moved to other positions (or DH) were not very good defensively. They are (with age they first played fewer games at catcher than at another position): Mike Piazza (35), Joe Mauer (31), Ted Simmons (34), Victor Martinez (32), Mickey Tettleton (32). All except Mauer had negative dWAR for the rest of their careers. Martinez, Tettleton, and Piazza had some good offensive years, not comparable to their mid-20s, of course, but still good enough to stay in the lineup. Mauer was just OK, and Simmons declined. All of them were better than JT offensively prior to their position switches.

My conclusions are that the catchers who change positions were usually not good defensively at their new positions, and they had varying degrees of age-appropriate decline offensively. Not a ringing endorsement of the idea of moving JT to another position.

(All WAR from baseball-reference)

[andyb]

Mauer is probably the best comp for athleticism. JT IS healthier at least. Mauer was going to be a plus defensive 1B at the beginning and guessing JT would too. That is just not that valuable to the team of course if paired with a 725 OPS.

[zambonir]

I recall also poring over the great value both Chooch and Bob Boone provided, off and on, as catchers in their aging seasons. You're hoping for outliers, but there are also intangibles (leadership and chemistry, game-calling). But it's a considerably different conversation once he's an 80-100 start, $8 million player vs. now. He's already delivered pretty reasonably on the value of his contract, I'm sure some of us predicted he'd be a back-up or dead money by year five (even if others did imagine he'd be good enough to DH or play 1B by then too).

The Phillies are just not very well-suited to integrating him in at any other position for the next two seasons anyway. Both our 1B and our DH are going to start 150+ games. We don't need a third RHB playing 3B. If he could play a little LF that might be cool but just a little. Not sure him doing anything other than DHing would truly mean less wear and tear (or injury risk).

[Philsmania]

Is JT registering on the HOF tracker?

[bkox]

Is JT registering on the HOF tracker?

[phillychuck]

JT's bat won't ply in RF or LF, either, just as it won't at 1B. If he could handle 2B or 3B he might be a + WAR player there for a handful of games each year. I'm really on board with the "cut down JT's games to 120-130 or so at catcher" movement, but there needs to be a realistic back-up for him in order to do that. Eduardo Tait probably isn't quite ready yet...

[Aquapong]

If only we had kept a certain catcher for JT to bring along. I like Marsh, but he’s likely a platoon starter in LF/CF and not an everyday catcher.

[zambonir]

I don't think the jury is in on either player. Marsh may yet play everyday and "platoon player" is not really a big deal when you are on the strong side of it. And O'Hoppe is in no way yet an everyday catcher. Odds are the Phillies are going to lose the trade long-term but they only needed to win it from 2022-2025, and probably wouldn't have made the playoffs (let alone the World Series) last year, or done as well this year (obviously they would have done some other trade too, which would have had its own cost).

A lot easier to find a back-up catcher or a new catcher in 2026 than replace what Marsh brought.

They also still like Marchan, I would think. He made it possible to trade O'Hoppe too. Even if he's not a future starter himself he's in the picture, as both a short and long term part of a tandem.

[BostonRoss]

I don’t see JT as a Hall of Famer, but it’s interesting to note that every catcher with at least 50 WAR is in the Hall. If JT stays reasonably healthy, doesn’t decline precipitously, and plays another six or seven years, he can get to50.

[andyb]

They also still like Marchan, I would think. He made it possible to trade O'Hoppe too.

Not sure I agree with that. They probably like Marchan as a backup only. And O'Hoppe was tradeable simply because of JT and the fact that he was seen as a potential starter and not only a backup.

We gambled JT would be starter worthy for the duration of his contract and we look like we are going to win that gamble even if things go south a bit. We have not identified our next catcher yet though.

[bkox]

They also still like Marchan, I would think.

Marchan has only had one good offensive minor league season.. that was this year when AAA offensive numbers were inflated for everyone. And even with the good year, he has a .677 OPS over 1618 minor league plate appearances

Catchers can take longer to mature. Chooch followed a similar trajectory before breaking out at age 25 in Reading. But right now Marchan's numbers dont scream that you want him starting 30-40 games.