The Philadelphia Phillies are slowly digging their way out of a tragic start to the season, and have seen a marked improvement from many players since interim manager Don Mattingly took over. However, one area of the roster that has been a blackhole is backup catcher, and unfortunately the club missed a prime opportunity to upgrade that spot this week.
Longtime starter J.T. Realmuto has fallen off from his best-catcher-in-baseball peak, but remains a decent, if overpaid, starting backstop into his mid-thirties. Unfortunately, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has done a terrible job assembling depth behind the 35-year-old, with the unplayable Rafael Marchán and chief vibes officer Garrett Stubbs taking turns flailing at pitches while Realmuto was on the shelf.
A backup catcher usually only plays once or twice a week, and it’s hardly the end of the world if he isn’t producing. However, on days when Realmuto gets a breather it would be nice to have an actual major league-caliber player to put out there.
Jonah Heim would've been a nice insurance policy for J.T. Realmuto
The division-rival Atlanta Braves provided the perfect opportunity for Dombrowski to shore up that weak link when they pushed former All-Star Jonah Heim off the roster. Unfortunately, nothing materialized as Atlanta dealt Heim to the nomadic Athletics for a bag of balls.
Heim would have been a perfect fit as Realmuto’s backup, seeing as the 30-year-old is signed to an eminently reasonable one-year, $1.5 million deal, and has posted a solid .231/.311/.410 line across 45 trips to the plate thus far. His .721 OPS is far from incredible, but would be a massive improvement over Stubbs’ .561 and Marchán’s putrid .267 mark.
Heim’s defensive metrics haven’t been any great shakes recently, but the 2023 World Series champion is only a few years removed from being one of the best backstops in the game. If the Phils had brought in Heim, it would have provided an interesting side story, seeing as this winter’s outfield acquisition Adolis García is a fellow former Texas Rangers star looking to recapture the magic of three years ago.
As he has done often during his Phillies tenure, Dave Dombrowski dropped the ball on an obvious chance to improve the roster. Jonah Heim is not the kind of player that would have radically altered the Phillies’ chances of winning a World Series, but stockpiling depth is important, especially at positions that are weak spots within the organization. Unfortunately, it looks like Phillies fans will be subjected to more of Stubbs and Marchán moving forward.
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