Phils splash the cash to keep Realmuto
All-Star catcher re-signs for five years, $115M
Dave Dombrowski slid $100,000,000 in front of J.T. Realmuto, waited five minutes and made it a buck-10. Then, he waited some more.
“We have Plan B’s,” the Phillies’ new president said. “And we have Plan C’s. I think we have them lined up.”
Oh, they were lined up, all right, AllStar catchers on Hall of Fame arcs, their luxury SUVs humming as they snaked along Pattison Ave., waiting for the Phillies to make it rain with that Plan C cash.
His own avenue to the Hall of Fame’s executive wing clear, Dombrowski knew better, and so did Phillies fans. He knew there was one job to do early in his team presidency, and it wasn’t to sign Sam Coonrod. He knew it was to bring back Realmuto, who should never have been made to wander into free agency in the first place. He knew it was to allow Bryce Harper to stop campaigning for the Phillies to re-sign the best catcher in the sport. He knew it was to please the fans, who were trying to remain connected to a franchise that was made last season to keep them penned outside the center field fence.
Already having gone a year without a single overpriced cotton-candy sale, the Phillies needed to find the financial skill and recruiting touch to convince the best overall catcher of his generation to play the rest of his high-yield seasons in South Philadelphia. So Dombrowski did, finally coaxing Realmuto into re-upping with the Phillies Monday for a reported $115.5 million splashed over five summers. That meant it took about $23 million a year to finally do what the clumsy three-legged-racing Matt Klentak and Andy MacPhail could not and to salvage not only a Phillies offseason, but the next five years of franchise relevance.
That the previous administration allowed an AllStar catcher to even spin into free agency was its own management risk. That’s because, in exchange for Realmuto and his soon-to-expire contract, Klentak surrendered the franchise’s best pitching prospect in Sixto Sanchez and useful catcher Jorge Alfaro. The deal was good at the time, and it grew better Monday. Even if Sanchez impacts N.L. East races for years, there is never shame in a trade that boosts both teams.
Sanchez can help Miami. Realmuto will help the Phillies. Where’s the problem? The only issue was whether John Middleton would go the extra walk-in cigar-humidifier full of cash to retain the services of Realmuto,
whose contract had expired at the end of last season. So, he has, even after having been unreasonably forced to quarantine his box office last summer. And so he has, even if the grownups-in-charge will remain oppressive early in the coming season, if not longer.
“There are very few catchers who can supply behind the plate what J.T. does,” Dombrowski said, late in the re-recruiting process. “I wouldn’t say that anybody is in that same category.”
Realmuto is the best catcher, skill for skill, of his generation, his arm as powerful as his right-handed swing. His new deal, the best for a catcher in history, is evidence. He’s 29, spreads no in-house stress, hits in the clutch and discourages base stealing with his chill stare alone. None of that is breaking news. No, the story is that the Phillies won’t have to ever have to share what that Plan C was, or Plan D, or Plan Silent K, Andrew Knapp should catch the drift.
“Obviously, everybody knows the great player that J.T. is,” Joe Girardi had said. “There are very few J.T.’s out there. But we have had some other ways to put the team together if it hadn’t come to fruition.”
That would have been a disaster, a massive franchise
retreat, an insult to the fans, a bigger insult to Harper, who only agreed to work in Philadelphia because he was sold on a promise that the franchise would draw blood in any free-agency octagon.
Had the Phillies spent Sanchez for no more than two playoff-free years’ worth of Realmuto, the governor would not have needed to spin yellow, crime-scene tape around Citizens Bank Park to keep people distanced. Those lost customers would have beaten him to it, except they would have draped black funeral bunting from foul pole to foul pole.
“I’m confident,” Girardi had said, “that it will get done.”
So, it’s gotten done, a little late, but in plenty of time for Realmuto to drive from Oklahoma to Clearwater, as he has been known to do, and begin to work with an improved bullpen. And because it has, the Phillies have a problem-free leader, a satisfied Harper and a chance to be substantially improved over the pathetic, final, gloomy days of the MacPhail-ure.
Already having made substantial bullpen upgrades, Dombrowski has given fans reason to believe the Phillies will recover from that 2020 mini-season
and play well enough under Girardi to contend for a championship. And this year they will get to do so without seven-inning games and goof-ball extra-inning base-runner allowances.
“When you get Bryce Harper to commit 10 years to a place, there is something good going on there,” said Archie Bradley, Dombrowski’s signature freeagent relief-staff addition. “And hopefully we’ll get my guy J.T. back.”
They Phillies have, and with a couple of weeks to spare. They have substantially re-worked the bullpen, too. But they need more. Another starting pitcher. Better make that a double. Another outfielder. A thick contract freshly autographed by Didi Gregorius. A healthy, Comeback Player of the Year summer from Scott Kingery, who has that ability.
There is time. There are options. But nothing would have worked without Plan J and Plan T.
“We want to do everything we possibly can,” Dombrowski said, “to make our team better.”
By Monday, he showed that by proving the No. 1 rule of the baseball business: Money works.