The Good Phight will be previewing the 2026 season by going over each position on the field. We’ll talk about the players that will occupy them, the players behind them, their strengths and weaknesses and give a few takes about how we think the season will shake out.
Rafael Marchan – can he hit enough to take actual playing time away from J.T. Realmuto?
One of the issues that has caused a lot of conversation with this team over the past few years is the amount of playing time J.T. Realmuto receives.
Usually, his goal is the catch in 130+ games in a season. Outside of his injury marred 2024 season, he has done so each year since his arrival (if we exclude the shortened 2020 season). Being an ironman behind the plate is an attribute that Realmuto wears with honor, but is it always the best for the team?
There are three ways of looking at it: Realmuto’s offense, defense and those who are behind him. Judging by his offense, his 2025 season looked like the year where everything caught up to him. All of the stuff that we look at for hitting was down, even if just a bit. His 94 wRC+ was his lowest since his rookie season, the under the hood stuff was all bluer than the 1936 electoral college map and it all just seemed to go backwards for him.
Yet check the lineup card most nights and you’d find Realmuto’s name on it more often than not. The manager just kept playing him and playing him and playing him. The pitchers love throwing to him, probably the biggest reason why he plays so much. We talked in the other preview about the still rudimentary ways of quantifying that outside of “feel”, but that’s usually why we always saw Realmuto starting games.
However, over the years, the two catchers that the team has employed as the backups – Garrett Stubbs and Rafael Marchan – are also playing a part. They simply are not a threat at the plate enough to demand that more playing time be given to them. While the offense did score runs last year (eighth most in the league), this year, they project to take a step back from that number, meaning they’ll have to find runs somewhere. If Realmuto is continuing that downward march, it would be nice if his bat were taken out of the lineup a little more often.
That means Marchan, the likely choice to be his main backup, is going to have to hit.
Now, based on his past numbers in the minors, that is probably not in the cards too much. He has never been known as a bat first prospect, relying on sparkline defense to carry him to the major league and that was pretty much the case. He’s an excellent defender behind the plate, but anemic when hitting. His Statcast data is, frankly, scary to behold.
Granted, we’re talking about only 119 plate appearances to gather this data from, so the sample size is still small, but it tracks with scouting reports he had attached to him growing up.
Can he actually hit enough to warrant Realmuto getting more games off his feet?
That’s something to watch as the season unfolds. Maybe Realmuto does experience a bit of a rebound this year, making a lot of the talk surrounding his decline moot. However, it would be helpful if Marchan at least presses him a bit more with some offensive improvement of his own. His glove is certainly good enough to play more often.
They just need more out of the bat.
