Philadelphia Phillies rumors: 3 free agents to sign and 1 to avoid this offseason

In a rare intra-division trade, the Miami Marlins offloaded their star catcher for a package of prospects headlined by flamethrowing starter Sixto Sanchez and catcher Jorge Alfaro. While this deal looked like highway robbery at the time for Philadelphia, Miami would be the clear winner if Realmuto bolts in free agency. While the Phillies gave up a solid starting catcher in Alfaro and one of the game’s most promising young right-handed starters in Sanchez, the Phillies might only get 192 games of production out of Realmuto. Simply put, the Phillies need to go for broke and try to keep him.

At a position that is extremely thin right now, Realmuto might end up being the best catcher in the game, as his blend of offense, defense, baserunning, and game-calling. Letting him walk, potentially to an NL East rival like the New York Mets that are willing to spend money in order to turn this ship around, would be a tacit admission that they lost the trade with Miami. The day-to-day lineup would suffer, as well, as anyone who is even pretending that Realmuto and Andrew Knapp are in the same tier offensively needs a head examination.

Realmuto is going to cost a lot of money, and the front office who splurged on Harper is gone, but the Phillies would essentially be committing baseball malpractice if they resign themselves to the possibility of Realmuto leaving.