Opinion: J.T. Realmuto and the Phillies will move on together, but right now, it’s at least a little awkward
Upon trading for a 27-year-old catcher from the Miami Marlins in early February 2019, former Phillies general manager Matt Klentak famously said the following when asked about extending J.T. Realmuto: “I think it’s a good idea to date the person before you ask them to marry you.”
It’s a good point. Generally, compared to the alternative, that sets the stage for a more successful union.
What can complicate things: hearing, publicly and openly, that you are the backup plan. And that’s the position Realmuto finds himself in with the Phillies, under a whole new front office regime, today.
Realmuto’s re-introductory Zoom on Tuesday being followed by a Q&A session with president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski on the pursuit of Bo Bichette laid that bare. And while “tension” isn’t the right word, “awkward” might fit. Realmuto and the Phillies are back together, but under these circumstances: The latter tried to upgrade and move on, the former was the admitted fallback, nobody is denying that, and each side’s valuation of him for much of the offseason was wide enough that it caused some frustration for the player.
Some Tuesday excerpts:
Dombrowski — “[Realmuto’s departure] was close. We thought we had a chance to make another deal, which fell through at the last minute, that would’ve changed, perhaps, the direction that we would have gone.”
Realmuto — “It’s no secret that the Phillies had other opportunities.”
Realmuto — “At the end of the day, I just value myself and what I do for the team and the clubhouse differently than what the Phillies did for a while. So that’s why it took longer than it maybe should have.”
Dombrowski — “We always wanted to bring J.T. back … There was a disagreement as far as dollars were concerned, is what it came down to. And we just couldn’t really bridge that gap for an extended time period.”
Realmuto — “For me, it sucks that, in my opinion, catchers are just undervalued in this game as far as contracts and dollars go … I believe in that value. And the Phillies did for a long time — I mean, I know they believe in it as well. It’s just, the dollars look different.”
Realmuto [on how intangibles can be conveniently overlooked in contract negotiations] — “It’s definitely frustrating.”
Executives, especially those as veteran as Dombrowski, and players, especially those as veteran as Realmuto, know that the old cliché is true: Baseball is a business. Businesses, therefore baseball, can be cruel.
But it’s unusual to hear that reality verbalized in terms as stark as both sides offered on Tuesday. Of course, it would have served no purpose to pretend otherwise — everyone knew the Phillies were in on Bichette, and everyone assumed it was one or the other — but that doesn’t change how strange it all felt. And while it’s not the start of Realmuto and the Phillies’ story together, it’s an awkward way to start chapter three.
Neither side handled anything wrong, from the look of it. Dombrowski made it a point on Tuesday to highlight that Realmuto was “a” priority for the Phillies all offseason. He said he called Realmuto’s agent in the waning hours of the Bichette saga so that Realmuto wouldn’t learn via “the paper” that the Phillies, seven years later, were moving on, just like that.
But as businesslike as baseball is, it would be understandable if any of it irked Realmuto.
He still wanted to be in Philadelphia — as evidenced by the deal, signed as the Phillies were licking their wounds from a perhaps franchise-changing miss. The episode was not a deal-breaker. But from Realmuto’s perspective, the story unfolded like this: He ended his seventh year with the club, made it clear from the outset he wanted an eighth (and ninth and, please, tenth), the club returned (at least two of) those desires and presented him an offer that, evidently, frustrated him — maybe, as he hinted, much more reflective of the .700 OPS from a year ago than of the leadership and “intangibles” they verbally touted. Because they wouldn’t meet him where he was at, the Phillies eventually started flirting with a would-be newcomer, courted him openly, stated their desire to land that player instead despite the heavy lifting it would require of the roster, told him they were moving on, and only came back after that plan went up in the flames of Steve Cohen’s hot stove.
Were the Phillies wrong that Bichette probably would have been worth it? No. Did they go about the process wrong? No. Could that sequence of events understandably bother Realmuto? Absolutely.
None of this is to say that the relationship is forever fractured. Neither side would tell you that. Again — it bears repeating — baseball is a business. Both sides know it. Realmuto got the dollar amount he ultimately found sufficient, he re-signed with the team he wanted to re-sign with, he was already in Clearwater and has already been to the Phillies’ spring training complex, and in four weeks, bygones might as well be bygones.
That would be ideal for the Phillies. It would make for great theater. That is, more great theater — because for an offseason that went by the book on paper, there was a little extra drama in practice. And as of Tuesday, the elephant hadn’t quite yet left the Zoom.