If all things go well, what does this season look like?
The 2025 season is upon us. We’ll preview the upcoming year by going around the diamond and look at how the Phillies are stacking up both at the major league level and down on the farm.
What is, in fact, a best case scenario for any player?
There are many different projection systems available to people who wish for an educated peer into the future. The accuracy of said projection system depends on willing you are at granting bandwidth on either side of the coin. If a player was projected to hit .270/.335/.475 and in actuality ended up with a triple slash line of .253/.328/.451, would you consider that projection system to be good? If you do, why? The final product isn’t all that close at all to what the system said was going to happen. If you do not consider them to good, why?
That’s why I am rarely look at these projections as anything less than a fun exercise in what might be. I’m not all that interested in the algorithms that go into creating them; much smarter people than I are behind that work and for their contributions, I thank them. But they just do not interest me in terms of predicting what might happen in the future.
Call it “Matt Wieters Projection Avoidance Syndrome”. If you know, you know…
So when it comes to thinking about how this season will go for the catchers that the Phillies employ, I’m mainly looking at three things:
- Did they actually dig into J.T. Realmuto’s playing time and was that beneficial?
- Did the catchers positively or negatively influence the strength of the team, the starting rotation?
- Is Eduardo Tait still on a trajectory to impact the major league level as a catcher?
These are three of the biggest things that will impact the team’s catching situation both now and into the future.
Think about how each one answered positively will affect not just the catcher, but also the team at hand.
First, if Realmuto’s playing time is actually cut into a bit this season and it happens to be good for his offensive production, the team has a sorely needed right-handed bat working for them in their lineup. While Alec Bohm and Nick Castellanos are nice to have in the middle and bottom half of the order, a healthy and effective Realmuto makes the lineup at least seven above average hitters deep, something that can be a big difference this coming season, what with the players in the division getting better as well. We have yet to see if it will actually happen. There is some evidence that Realmuto actually doesn’t wear down as the season goes on, that he improves in the later part of the season, but we’ll have to see if the opposite holds true this year.
Second, the team will live and die with their rotation. If they are not that good, this team probably does not finish in the playoffs picture. The chances of that happening are pretty slim, but it could happen. A lot of the rotation’s success depends on their relationship with the catchers behind the plate and how they perform. How are they calling a game? How are they blocking balls in the dirt, letting the pitchers bury them there with confidence? How is their pitch presentation ability in order to get those extra strikes or two within a game? If the catchers continue doing their jobs as well as they have been doing these past few seasons, the pitching staff can only stand to benefit, leaving them ahead of the other playoff chasing teams around them, the ones with inferior pitching staffs.
Third, almost as important as what is happening at the major league level is what is happening down on the farm. We are all well aware of Realmuto’s contract situation. It remains to be seen if the team is as interested in continuing the relationship with Realmuto as it seems he is. What will help shape that extension, should one come to fruition, is how Tait’s progress continues down in the lower minor league levels. Should Tait continue to look like a solid hitting prospect whose defense continues to make strides, the team won’t have to worry about crafting an extension offer that makes them too uncomfortable in terms of years.
Now, these are all the positive outcomes. The negative ones are obvious. If something were to befall Realmuto for an extended period of time, the catching depth for the team to weather such a storm simply isn’t proven to be there. Rafael Marchan has always looked like he could handle extended playing time, but even his own body has let him down. Garrett Stubbs is simply not a good major league catcher and should only see time in Philadelphia if any kind of malady should occur. Beyond that, the team is thinner than thin, something that does plague other teams around the National League. It’s not just a Phillies concern. They’re just uniquely dependent on being able to have a player at the position that is a cut above the others.
How this season plays out, of course, remains to be seen. Thanks to the physical demands of the catching position, one always worries about how the main character will hold up. Yet if those three questions are answered in anything ranging from a solid to resounding positive, the Phillies should then feel good about how the season has gone in terms of evaluating the spot.