Phillies Lost The JT Realmuto Trade

JT Realmuto is probably the best catcher in baseball. He’s been nothing but a stud for Philadelphia since being acquired from the Marlins. That’s fine and well. As long as we acknowledge the Marlins won this trade. It’s not even debatable.

Since coming to Philadelphia, Realmuto has been a star. In 2019, Realmuto put together a batting line of .275/.328/.493 with 25 homers. Realmuto has been even better in 2020 posting a career best OPS+ of 140. Realmuto is significantly better than the average catcher. That doesn’t change the reality. The Phillies blew this trade.

Miami acquired Jorge Alfaro, Sixto Sanchez, Will Stewart, and international bonus money in the trade for Realmuto. Yes, there’s a gap between Jorge Alfaro and JT Realmuto. A sizeable one, in fact. Alfaro is an excellent defensive catcher and under team control 3 more years after this one. Realmuto is under team control for 6 more weeks and is about to command the brinks truck.

If Philadelphia would have just given up Alfaro and a few throw ins to make the Realmuto trade work, I would have defended them. A chance to bring in the best catcher in baseball on a team on the rise, I get it. Philadelphia didn’t include a few throw ins. They included Sixto Sanchez Who I thought was one of the best pitching prospects to come out in years. Turns out I was right.

Giving up Sixto Sanchez should have been a non-starter for the Phillies. Sanchez recently got called up and thus far has made two starts. Sanchez has pitched 12 innings recording 14 strikeouts with an ERA of 2.25. Yes, I know it’s a small sample size. Don’t care. If you watch the man pitch, you know this is going to be someone who does damage in the big leagues for a LONG time.

Yeah, good luck hitting that. The first place Rays couldn’t touch him.

22 years old and making hitters look like complete fools. Good luck hitting him.

Don’t worry Philly fans, you have JT Realmuto under team control for 6 more weeks. The Marlins have Sixto Sanchez under team control for 6 more years.

You can slice it however you want. The fact of the matter is, this was a terrible trade for the Phillies. An indefensible trade. I get when teams make win now moves. I defend GM’s for pushing their chips to the center when it makes sense to do so. The reality is, this Phillies team is not a World Series winner with or without Realmuto.

2018 the Phillies won 80 games. In 2019, Philadelphia spent every dollar in the piggy bank for Bryce Harper and made a massive move for Realmuto. They won 81 games in 2019. What about 2020? Good question. The Phillies are in 4th place and currently sit a game behind the Marlins. The same team that robbed them and will just now get the benefits of Sanchez.

Philadelphia has the resources to keep Realmuto for the foreseeable future. It’s going to cost them to do so while the Marlins have Alfaro and Sanchez for pennies with plenty of remaining team control. Matt Klentak is a GM I haven’t figured out. This trade is going to go down as an L. Klentak has failed to win anything since taking over in 2015. This trade didn’t help matters.

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