Red Sox Interested In Catcher JT Realmuto

[Brock Beauchamp]

The Red Sox have checked in on free-agent catcher J.T. Realmuto, according to Ken Rosenthal and Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic. Realmuto, entering his age-35 season, just completed his sixth year with Philadelphia and reached the postseason in four straight years as the club’s primary catcher.

In 2025, Realmuto logged 550 plate appearances over 134 games and hit .257/.315/.384 with 12 home runs and eight stolen bases, producing a .700 OPS and a 91 OPS+.  FanGraphs credited him with a 94 wRC+ and 2.1 WAR. Statcast shows a wOBA of .307 and xwOBA of .316, with a hard-hit rate around 37 percent. On the defensive side, he caught over 1,150 innings in 2025 and remained a high-volume backstop. He posted a 28 percent caught-stealing rate and pop times around 1.86 seconds.

Boston’s current catching group centers on Carlos Narváez and Connor Wong. Over the 2024–25 seasons combined, Wong has 675 plate appearances and produced a .255/.314/.374 line with a .688 OPS, .119 ISO and 92 wRC+. Narváez’s 2025 defensive metrics included a fielding run value of +5, +4 blocks above average, +2 caught stealing above average, and +3 framing runs, placing him among the more effective defensive catchers by those measures.

With the emergence of Narváez in 2025, do you think Realmuto is a good addition?

 

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[Hitch]

Nothing about this makes much sense to me unless his market craters. Yes we could do with an upgrade on Wong, but we have bigger and more expensive fish to fry,

[moonslav59]

Unless JH agrees to open his wallet wide- yea sure!- I say no.

We need every penny to get two big bats,

[Nick]

Our infield still looks thin to me. I would think we can always find a decent backup catcher. Not at the top of my list. 

[Jasonbay44]

14 minutes ago, Nick said:

Our infield still looks thin to me. I would think we can always find a decent backup catcher. Not at the top of my list. 

I don’t think Realmuto is looking to be a backup. He’s still a really good player 

[drewski6]

Narvaez really tailed off at the end there.  But I find them to be very similar, prob slight edge going to Realmuto (expecting some positive mean-regression).  But they both are below average framers, with arm, prob about average defensively. And they are both prob around 15 HR pop which is nice to have from a catcher.

But I lean towards the upgrade not being worth the $$

Now if they strike out on Bregman and Alonso and Schwarber, we might get into a take offense anywhere we can get it territory, and maybe then

But I dont think JT should be a priority. In no universe does he sit behind Narv tho, Narv would likely go to AAA or trade.

[notin]

4 hours ago, Nick said:

Our infield still looks thin to me. I would think we can always find a decent backup catcher. Not at the top of my list. 

They’re going to address the infield somehow.  I think they are aware who they have and who they list…

[mvp 78]

15 hours ago, Hitch said:

Nothing about this makes much sense to me unless his market craters. Yes we could do with an upgrade on Wong, but we have bigger and more expensive fish to fry,

"Yuck" - Eck

[notin]

17 hours ago, Hitch said:

Nothing about this makes much sense to me unless his market craters. Yes we could do with an upgrade on Wong, but we have bigger and more expensive fish to fry,

Too bad, because when stories break that the Sox are “interested in” a player, it almost always assures a deal is imminent.

 

 

 

(Possible sarcasm?)

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

8 minutes ago, notin said:

Too bad, because when stories break that the Sox are “interested in” a player, it almost always assures a deal is imminent.

(Possible sarcasm?)

No, you're right -- those rumors always produce a great deal... of skepticism, bitterness and rueful laughter.

[Deja Doh]

JT wants to play full time, not be a backup, or a platoon guy (and rightly so).  The constant churn of lineups we put out (which are ridiculous change for changes sake) would likely impact him playing daily.  Go get Alonso and Bichette first.

[Larry Cook]

20 hours ago, drewski6 said:

Narvaez really tailed off at the end there.  But I find them to be very similar, prob slight edge going to Realmuto (expecting some positive mean-regression).  But they both are below average framers, with arm, prob about average defensively. And they are both prob around 15 HR pop which is nice to have from a catcher.

But I lean towards the upgrade not being worth the $$

Now if they strike out on Bregman and Alonso and Schwarber, we might get into a take offense anywhere we can get it territory, and maybe then

But I dont think JT should be a priority. In no universe does he sit behind Narv tho, Narv would likely go to AAA or trade.

I think narveaz had a couple things going on last year! 
first. He hit the rookie wall from overuse! 
Second. He played through injury that required surgery I think. 

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, Larry Cook said:

I think narveaz had a couple things going on last year! 
first. He hit the rookie wall from overuse! 
Second. He played through injury that required surgery I think. 

It's hard to know if he "hit a wall." of if it was something else, including just a prolonged slump. His drop off was and still is worrisome, but not to the point where signing Realmuto jumps priority over other higher needs.

Also, are we so sure it was some sort of ran out of gas situation? He actually did better over his last 26 games and 92 PAs (almost 1/4 of his total) than he did in his first 3/4.

.751 after August 21st

.718 before August 21st.

Yes, he was over .800 for much of the first 3 months of the year, so first half>second half, yes there was a sharp drop, but if it was due to fatigue, why did he do better over the last 5-6 weeks of the season?

.750 is damn good for a catcher and about 30 points higher than the whole MLB OPS.

[BaseballGuru]

WHERE IS OUR 2nd Ace or #2??? That is my question.  I hated tuesdays deal.  (2) 95-97 youngsters with 12 combined years of control for a rental who has anxiety in big markets and is 36 years old and cost 41 million when all said and done for 1 year.  Terrible in my opinion.  Unless you like red birds.  So far how to mess up a situation that one could almost not mess up blindfolded has happened in move #1

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, BaseballGuru said:

WHERE IS OUR 2nd Ace or #2??? That is my question.  I hated tuesdays deal.  (2) 95-97 youngsters with 12 combined years of control for a rental who has anxiety in big markets and is 36 years old and cost 41 million when all said and done for 1 year.  Terrible in my opinion.  Unless you like red birds.  So far how to mess up a situation that one could almost not mess up blindfolded has happened in move #1

He costs $21M not $41M.

The rest is true.

The guy is great with Ks and BBs. I'm not sure that's all we needed.

[mvp 78]

On 11/26/2025 at 7:19 PM, BaseballGuru said:

WHERE IS OUR 2nd Ace or #2??? That is my question.  I hated tuesdays deal.  (2) 95-97 youngsters with 12 combined years of control for a rental who has anxiety in big markets and is 36 years old and cost 41 million when all said and done for 1 year.  Terrible in my opinion.  Unless you like red birds.  So far how to mess up a situation that one could almost not mess up blindfolded has happened in move #1

It's not even December yet.

There are no reports of him having anxiety.

If we are only worried about control, we'd never trade any prospects. 

Clarke has the same strike throwing percentage as Hicks and Mata. 

Fitts was a backend starter at best and took zero steps forward last season while other guys took leaps. 

[JoeBrady]

15 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

If we are only worried about control, we'd never trade any prospects. 

Clarke has the same strike throwing percentage as Hicks and Mata. 

Well said.  I think folks need to separate the #2 issue from this trade.  There is a better than even chance that neither guy amounts to anything.  One more year like last year, and you might not hear about Clarke again.  In any case, neither rank highly in our future plans.  I think it was best said when someone said 'the Red Sox just got better'.  Nice and simple.

[moonslav59]

26 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Well said.  I think folks need to separate the #2 issue from this trade.  There is a better than even chance that neither guy amounts to anything.  One more year like last year, and you might not hear about Clarke again.  In any case, neither rank highly in our future plans.  I think it was best said when someone said 'the Red Sox just got better'.  Nice and simple.

The trade made us better, for sure, and the odds are low we will look back and say, I wish we still had Clarke or Fitts, but then again, we may have felt that way about Priester.

The focus needs to turn to replacing Bregman and 1/2 Devers. There really needs to be a gain, since we can't really count on Gray doing much better than the 2025 Gio.

Signing Bregman or Bichette is a push on replacing Bregman.

Replacing Devers is the real challenge. To me, KMarte is the best choice with Alonso or Schwarber as close. Signing both Bregman and Bichette is not really a power boost, but could be enough. (I'm not sure we afford both after adding $21M for Gray, so I'm thinking trading some salary for KMarte works better.)

 

[notin]

On 11/28/2025 at 6:56 AM, mvp 78 said:

It's not even December yet.

There are no reports of him having anxiety.

If we are only worried about control, we'd never trade any prospects. 

Clarke has the same strike throwing percentage as Hicks and Mata. 

Fitts was a backend starter at best and took zero steps forward last season while other guys took leaps. 

On Fitts, he was the talk of ST but he got hurt before he could prove anything…

[moonslav59]

28 minutes ago, notin said:

On Fitts, he was the talk of ST but he got hurt before he could prove anything…

He did get a couple shots later, but it's too early to know what his true upside is.

[mvp 78]

On 11/29/2025 at 10:27 AM, notin said:

On Fitts, he was the talk of ST but he got hurt before he could prove anything…

His velo was up a tick and he was actually k'ing people. The problem was that once he got to the Regular Season and better lineups, he stopped k'ing people and was back to needing BABIP luck from what I remember. After he came back from injury, they were reluctant to let him pitch later in to games. Due to injury? Like of a put away pitch? Other?  

[mvp 78]

On 11/29/2025 at 10:56 AM, moonslav59 said:

He did get a couple shots later, but it's too early to know what his true upside is.

The upside is that more people will know him because of "LOL Dick Fitts" than his pitchability. 

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

The upside is that more people will know him because of "LOL Dick Fitts" than his pitchability. 

I had him pegged for our pen as maybe a long guy- low to moderate leverage. No big loss, in my opinion, but I felt the same about Priester, so what do I know?

[mvp 78]

12 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I had him pegged for our pen as maybe a long guy- low to moderate leverage. No big loss, in my opinion, but I felt the same about Priester, so what do I know?

Priester was the low to moderate guy in the Sox system. The Brewers helped unlock a little bit in him (*cough cough* cutter). 

[moonslav59]

45 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Priester was the low to moderate guy in the Sox system. The Brewers helped unlock a little bit in him (*cough cough* cutter). 

I don't let deals like that one bug me, for just the reason you stated. Plus, I like Holobetz and maybe one of the others jumps up, this year.

[notin]

7 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I had him pegged for our pen as maybe a long guy- low to moderate leverage. No big loss, in my opinion, but I felt the same about Priester, so what do I know?

Between Fitts, Priester, Harrison, and Dobbins and possibly even Criswell, the Sox had enough fringe-starter depth to deal away one or two.  Especially if Drohan and/or Uberstine can enter the picture…

[moonslav59]

14 minutes ago, notin said:

Between Fitts, Priester, Harrison, and Dobbins and possibly even Criswell, the Sox had enough fringe-starter depth to deal away one or two.  Especially if Drohan and/or Uberstine can enter the picture…

I won't be a bit surprised if one of these others have a better 2026 season than Priester.