The window for the core of the 2022-25 Phillies will not stay propped open forever, and as is well known by now, there are some important parts of this team that has made three straight trips to the postseason that may not be here a year from now.
Three major contributors are playing on the final year of their contracts.
J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber and Ranger Suarez can all become free agents after the 2025 season ends with a Phils World Series title, and while Suarez has spoken at length this spring about wanting to stay in the Philadelphia, it is almost a certainty that he will test the market. The Phillies have top pitching prospect Andrew Painter ready to claim a spot in the big league rotation as soon as 2026, with the other four starters all locked in place for next season and beyond already.
Less certain are the futures of Realmuto and Schwarber. On the most recent edition of my Hittin’ Season podcast, The Athletic’s Jayson Stark indicated the odds are far more likely that Schwarber inks a deal to stick around rather than the Phils’ long-time catcher.
“I don’t think there’s an extension coming for J.T.,” Stark said. “He’s a catcher moving into his mid-30s, and my sense is they’ll do with him what they did with him last time. If you remember, they let it play out and he got all the way to free agency and then they wound up signing him. If he’s back next year, I think that’s how it will work.”
Realmuto joined the Phillies via a trade for top pitching prospect Sixto Sanchez prior to the 2019 season and, over the course of that season and the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign, Realmuto had an .825 OPS and 5.8 WAR over 192 games. However, the team did not work out a contract extension with him prior to hitting free agency.
There was real concern he would leave Philadelphia if allowed to hit the open market, but in the end, Realmuto and the Phils agreed to a five-year, $115.5 million deal, with an AAV of $23.1 million that set a record for catchers.
Despite a perceived “down” season in 2024, Realmuto was still one of the better offensive catchers in the league, with a .751 OPS that was 8th-best among 27 MLB catchers with at least 300 plate appearances, and his 2.0 fWAR in just 99 games played ranked 13th. Should he hit free agency, Realmuto would be far and away the best catcher available:
Catcher: J.T. Realmuto, Salvador Perez (club option), Jose Trevino, Mitch Garver (mutual option), Gary Sánchez, Danny Jansen (mutual option), Tom Murphy (club option), Austin Barnes, Jacob Stallings (mutual option), Christian Bethancourt, Christian Vázquez, Victor Caratini, Austin Hedges, Elias Díaz (mutual option)
Should he leave, the Phils don’t have a great back-up plan. They could sign an inferior player for less money, swing a trade, or offer the job to presumed back-up catcher Rafael Marchan in 2026, at least in a platoon role with a right-handed hitting catcher.
Less than ideal.
As for Schwarber? Stark thinks the odds are more likely something gets done with him, although it may not happen before the team breaks camp.
“Schwarber is a little different, because he’s a DH and because of what he means to the team on the field and the group off the field,” Stark said. “There’s definitely mutual interest in extending him. You haven’t seen Kyle Schwarber do the Vlad Guerrero Jr. act and say, ‘We don’t sign by 10 o’clock on this date, I’m out.’
He doesn’t want to be out. And they don’t want him out. The sense I get is that it’s very hard for both sides to envision a future that doesn’t have Kyle Schwarber in it.”
Schwarber is the team’s most accomplished power hitter and the heartbeat of the franchise. It would indeed be difficult to imagine this core without him.
