December 16, 2025
Erik Williams/Imagn Images
J.T. Realmuto is the Phillies' biggest remaining free agent priority.
The Phillies re-signed Kyle Schwarber, added Adolis García as their new everyday right fielder, and have top prospect Justin Crawford set up to take the everyday center field job.
The Phils still have some orders of business to address this winter, but mainly, one last major one.
"Catcher is really our main focus," Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said in a Zoom call with the media on Tuesday.
J.T. Realmuto, their starting catcher since 2019, became a free agent after this past season, and stands as the sensible choice to re-up.
Realmuto will be entering his age-35 season in 2026, and while his bat has declined a bit, he's remained highly durable as a backstop, and as half the battery, he still brings a lot of value as a sign-caller and defender.
After Schwarber signed his five-year, $150 million deal to stay with the Phillies, the star slugger talked about staying in touch with Realmuto, along with his and his teammates' interest in keeping the dependable catcher around.
Dombrowski mentioned staying in contact, but couldn't say whether the club was any closer or not to getting a deal done.
"We just continue to grind along and see if we can come up with a solution," Dombrowski said. "We talk about, consistently, about trying to sign J.T., and we remain that way. But we haven't been able to get it done so far."
The Phillies also have left-hander Ranger Suárez out there as their notable free-agent starting pitcher, and Dombrowski did mention the ever-existing need for maybe one more arm in the bullpen, but neither seems to have anywhere near as big an immediate priority as Realmuto and what happens at catcher.
They have their veterans in the rotation, Dombrowski noted, and at some point, they do have to give their prospects like Andrew Painter and Gage Wood their shot.
And everywhere else...
"I think as far as our everyday positional players, other than catcher, we're pretty well set," Dombrowski said.
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