The catching position has long been a weak link in Tampa Bay, and the Rays at least considered making a big move to solidify the position this winter. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports that Tampa showed some interest in signing J.T. Realmuto before Realmuto re-signed with the Phillies yesterday for three years and $45MM.
The Rays rarely make major forays into the free agent market, and it was widely assumed that Realmuto would eventually return to Philadelphia. Beyond these two points, however, it makes plenty of sense why the Rays would’ve checked in Realmuto, given both their needs behind the plate and the fact that Realmuto lingered on the open market until mid-January. Had the Phillies successfully signed Bo Bichette, for instance, Realmuto’s chances of a reunion might’ve gotten a lot slimmer, leaving the door open for the Rays (or another catcher-needy team) to swoop in with an offer.
Zach Eflin’s three-year, $40MM deal from the 2022-23 offseason represents the biggest contract the Rays have ever given to a free agent. This isn’t far under what Realmuto got from the Phillies, and if Philadelphia had dropped out of the Realmuto market altogether, there might’ve been opportunity for the Rays to make a similar offer, or perhaps even a matching average annual value on a two-year deal. In fact, MLB Trade Rumors projected a two-year, $30MM deal for Realmuto, but the Phils ended up adding a third year with the same $15MM average annual value.
Besides the Phillies, the Red Sox were the only other team known to have interest in Realmuto this winter. The Rangers were a speculative suitor, but reports indicated that the team’s limited budget wouldn’t allow for such a pursuit. Among other contenders or would-be contenders, the Giants, Reds, Pirates, or Marlins might’ve made sense, but there wasn’t any indication that any of these clubs (several of whom are also operating within reduced payrolls) made any push for Realmuto.
As per usual in Tampa Bay, there has been a lot of offseason roster shuffling, with some relatively pricier players moved out and other players brought in to fill holes in a somewhat less expensive manner. Steven Matz, Cedric Mullins, and Jake Fraley were all signed for a combined $25MM, so the Rays added three players for slightly more than the $22.5MM they would’ve owed Brandon Lowe and Pete Fairbanks had the two been retained. The end result is a payroll that will probably look pretty similar to last year — RosterResource estimates the Rays’ 2026 payroll at around $80.1MM, in comparison to their $78.9MM payroll from 2025.
Signing Realmuto might well have resulted in the Rays having to unload another prominent salary to make the numbers fit. Losing someone like Yandy Diaz to add Realmuto might not have been a welcome tradeoff for Tampa’s lineup, but since Diaz is entering the last guaranteed year of his contract, perhaps that’s a move the Rays would’ve been open to making making in order to finally shore up the catching position.
President of baseball operations Erik Neander said in November that the Rays were keeping an open mind about catchers, saying that “if we can find a way to be better at that position, we will, but those are two guys [Nick Fortes and Hunter Feduccia] we appreciate. If we roll into next year and that’s where we are — a lot of players, we’re counting on development from where they were, and that certainly applies to those two and [we] think that they can give us more than they did this year.”
Fortes and Feduccia are currently lined up as the Rays’ top two catchers, with Logan Driscoll and non-roster invite Blake Sabol as the only other backstops in the organization with any MLB experience. In a sign of how the position has been a revolving door for the Rays, Fortes and Feduccia have each been with the team just since July, as the duo were respectively acquired from the Marlins and Dodgers in deadline trades.
Fortes is a glove-first catcher who has hit only .224/.280/.345 over 1174 plate appearances in the majors. Feduccia also hasn’t hit in the Show but only in the limited sample of 119 PA, with 102 of those trips to the plate coming after the trade from Los Angeles. Formally a well-regarded prospect in the L.A. farm system, Feduccia has strong Triple-A numbers and might be something of an untapped resource as a hitter, though he is already 28 years old.
With Realmuto back in Philadelphia and Victor Caratini now signed by the Twins, the top two options on the free agent catching market quickly left the board in 24 hours’ time. Rather than sort through other free agents who might not represent clear upgrades, the Rays seem to prefer looking for trade help, as Rosenthal writes. The pickings are pretty slim on this front as well, but teams like the Royals, Cardinals, or Pirates could conceivably have enough available catching depth to match up with Tampa Bay as trade partners.
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