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Reds Interested In J.T. Realmuto

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3:38pm: The Reds are still talking to the Marlins about Realmuto but aren’t including Senzel in the trade negotiations, Jon Heyman tweets.

1:34pm: Yet another suitor has emerged for J.T. Realmuto, as SiriusXM’s Craig Mish (Twitter link) reports that the Reds “have jumped into” talks for the Marlins catcher.  It isn’t a new interest, however, as the Miami Herald’s Clark Spencer hears that Cincinnati has been interested in Realmuto “for a while.”  Current Reds catcher Tucker Barnhart and outfield prospect Taylor Trammell have been mentioned as possible candidates to go back to Miami in the deal, according to Fancred Sports’ Jon Heyman (via Twitter).

Cincinnati has been linked to a number of big names in trade and free agent speculation this winter, with their focus largely aimed at pitching but also such notable position players as A.J. Pollock, Yasiel Puig, and Ender Inciarte.  Acquiring a catcher, however, would count as something of an unexpected move on the Reds’ part, since Barnhart was signed to a four-year extension just in September 2017.  As Realmuto is arguably the best catcher in baseball, there’s obvious upgrade potential for Cincinnati, and adding such a star player with just two years of remaining control further indicates the Reds’ willingness to make a quick return to contention.

Never an above-average hitter, Barnhart slashed .248/.328/.372 last season, which represented a dip from his 2017 production.  Defensively, Barnhart continued to have some of the lowest framing rankings of any catcher in baseball (as per StatCorner and Baseball Prospectus), and his once-elite throwing arm also took a hit, as Barnhart threw out just under 24% of all baserunners trying to steal on him last season.  On the plus side, Barnhart continued to draw high marks for his pitch-blocking abilities.

Barnhart is owed $10.25MM in guaranteed money over the next three seasons (including a $500K buyout of a $7.5MM option for 2022), so he’s still be a very affordable piece to solidify Miami’s catching situation if he was part of the Realmuto trade package.  Trammell is a longer-term piece, and the type of blue chip prospect the Marlins have been seeking in exchange for their All-Star catcher.

Trammell is a consensus top-50 prospect in all of baseball, ranked as the second-best prospect (behind Nick Senzel) in the Reds’ system.  MLB.com is most bullish on Trammell, ranking him 17th on its top 100 list.  Drafted 35th overall in 2016, Trammell is regarded as an excellent athlete with outstanding speed, and a developing approach at the plate.  The 21-year-old showed improved contact skills and plate discipline in his third pro season, and MLB.com’s scouting report believes Trammell will develop more power as he ages.

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Comments

      • Wow look at all the downvotes. The Padres sure have a lot of haters. Love it! You will all be on suicide watch when we become good.

        1

        • Mark it down guys – make sure you have a good therapist by 2079.

          4

        • Boasting a top rated farm for the last decade. Hows that working out for your team? 1 playoff appearance in 15/20 years despite having two of the best coaches in bud black and bruce boche?

          4

        • Two playoff appearances this century and the previous Padres farm systems were all depth with no impact talent.

          1

        • Are you intentionally misrepresenting the facts? The Padres traded away the farm in 2015 in acquiring Justin Upton, Craig Kimbrel and others. There top farm system is a new product

      • oh so true. The last few seasons have been brutal, and I sure don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

        1

    • “Competing” being a good team or “competing” having a legit shot at a playoff spot?

    • Padres by a long-shot. Reds FO is like actively trying to botch their own rebuilding effort

      3

    • Reds are ahead of the Cardinals…especially if they’re gonna sign 3-4 of these free-agents. But not the Padres, farm system is gonna provide depth for years.

      1

      • ____ will be better than ______ if they sign 3-4 good free agents.

        By the way, where are we on that bet as to whether the Cardinals win more games in 2019 than the Pads? Loser has to deactivate his account.

        I’ll take the Cards.

        3

        • We will continue building in 2019, while your team will be blowing its load trying to make a one game WC playoff.

          Lets bet 2020?? If so I am all in.

        • Yeah 2011 wc worked out horribly for cardinals. Gotta be in it to win it.

          1

        • 2025 that’s sounds about the year the Cardinals will be a serious contender again (i.e. after the 5 year rebuild)

      • Name a pads top rated prospect to be drafted and developed in your organization in the last 10 years that was impactful in majors. Go on ill wait.

        6

        • Not as long as you’ll be waiting for the Dodgers to make it back to a World Series.

        • It’s funny, even the good players didn’t do anything with the Padres. Kluber, Mikolas, Trea Turner, Mallex Smith…

          1

        • Same old standard troll job from good old Juicey. Strange for a Padres fan to hate the Cardinals so much, usually it’s the Central teams that have actually been relevant this century that produce the hate for the Cardinals.

          1

    • I think the Reds currently have more talent, obviously with Iglesias, Votto and Suarez.
      I’d like The Padres to trade for Senzel for 3b. Urias, Tatis and Senzel infield would be a pretty good based on potential. Do they need OF’s? I feel if the reds want to compete in 2019, we could package a Lucchessi/Lauer, Yates/Renfroe, and a lottery pick for him.

      • Reds only won one more game last year, are going to lose Gennett to FA in a year and have a declining unmovable Joey Votto.

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        • All true. I’d much rather have the Padres team and system. Even with the Hosmer contract

          1

    • Padres by a mile. The Reds aren’t even close to contention and play in a harder division

      Padres also have a better farm and, frankly, a better major league team

      1

    • Padres. It isn’t even close. As long as this ownership and management team is in place the Reds don’t have a winning season.

      1

    • Yeah because getting a gold glove catcher and one of the games top prospects isnt enough.

      2

      • Could braves trade Flowers (better pitch framing, better offensively) and say Pache (higher rated prospect) for realmuto? I say no.

        1

        • Man you have way unrealistic views on Realmuto…I think hed a flip for the Reds

        • Sigh..he is the best catcher in baseball…young and controllable, low cost contract but it isn’t just all that setting his value. The Marlins are asking a lot for him and a lot of teams are in on him driving the price up even more.

          Brandon there isn’t being unrealistic, he’s just reading the cars window price to you. Realmuto will cost at least 2 top 100 prospects and company. This might even be a low ball figure.

          2

      • That is correct. One gold glove last year and one top prospect will not get it done.

  5. I call absolute BS on this. No way my Reds are even looking at their catching situation. This is ridiculous to even suggest….unless….there’s a three-way deal going on….involving the Mets and a pitcher (and maybe more) heading to Cincy. I still hate giving up those guys, regardless. If it lands us the right starter package, I’ll swallow it. Tucker is arguably the second or third best C in the NL.

    5

    • Grandal, Realmuto, Molina, Posey, Flowers, Maldonado…. not in that order, but I argue these guys are better, and I’m probably missing a few.

      1

      • Brandon you don’t watch much baseball. Flowers is not even close to tucker. Posey is an after thought as C now. Grandal can hit but is awful defensively.
        Tucker is top by any metric you wish to use. Flowers, what a joke.

        • Not according to the article you are commenting under: “Never an above-average hitter, Barnhart slashed .248/.328/.372 last season, which represented a dip from his 2017 production. Defensively, Barnhart continued to have some of the lowest framing rankings of any catcher in baseball (as per StatCorner and Baseball Prospectus), and his once-elite throwing arm also took a hit, as Barnhart threw out just under 24% of all baserunners trying to steal on him last season. On the plus side, Barnhart continued to draw high marks for his pitch-blocking abilities.”

          1

      • Molina is so over rated now. Winning these gold gloves shows just how bad the catcher position is defensively in the NL. Molina looks slow and lazy behind the plate. Nobody in the media has the balls to say it.

        1

    • I agree, and I don’t know how these pitch framing stats are developed, but as a former catcher it’s not that damn hard to put your glove in the strike zone for the pitcher. If he can’t hit it that’s not on me…bs

      • It’s not on the catcher for the pitcher to throw strikes, you are correct. But a catcher that can get more called strikes on balls that aren’t in the zone is better at his craft than one who gets less. That’s a more valuable catcher every day of the week.

        2

  7. Why don’t the mets trade Thor straight up for realmuto? Throw in a prospect if need be

    1

      • The best catcher in the league vs a pitcher that has pitched 500 innings in 4 years. But Noah is “more valuable”

        2

        • But being the best catcher in the league when the position as a whole is extremely weak is not really that great. Put Realmuto’s stats in any other 5 year period and he would not be the best in the league and would barely break top 5 in most years.

          Two years ago, Jonathan Lucroy was the best catcher in the league. How’d that work out?

          Realmuto is good, but not all-time good. Players like that have a short peak and a quick fall off.

        • Hes also playing on a team that’s going nowhere. What’s his motivation? He clearly doesnt want to be there. Put him in a place he’d like to play and I guarantee you he’ll put up even better numbers.

        • Very doubtful. More likely is that he looks good compared to the rest of his team and he would quickly fade into the background on a good team.

          2

        • In this day and age of stats you think anyone is looking at his production compared to the rest of the team or against his peers?

          When JTR comes to bat, they don’t have to give him strikes to hit because they know the person behind him won’t do anything. You’re completely wrong on this. Batting around players who are much worse than you doesn’t do JTR any favors.

  8. This would be a dumb move. The Reds needs pitching in the worst way and he’s a year removed from a 3.4 bWAR season. They can afford to take a hit on Tucker’s offense with the talent they have in the rest of that infield.

    5

  9. Seems they’re focusing on the wrong part of their roster. Barnhart is fine. Go get some pitching and let the gold glover hang around for $3M/yr.

    I call bogus on this report. The water around JTR is so muddied right now. I’m starting to think the Mets interest (and all the surrounding speculation) was just a smokescreen to clear the way for them to get Ramos for a little cheaper.

    3

  10. Maybe this is part of a three-way trade that sends Realmuto to the Dodgers, Puig to the Reds?

    • So the Reds give up Trammell and Barnhart and get Puig for one season? No this smells like the Reds getting Syndergaard in a three way

      • If it’s the Dodgers, then contract swaps are bound to be part of this. Could the bad contracts of Homer Bailey and Matt Kemp somehow make their way into a complex deal? That wouldn’t surprise me. It would require some creativity from the Reds, which has not been a strength in recent years.

  12. No way they give up Trammell for Puig, Mets and Thor may be a very different story though.

  13. Lol why? Reds aren’t going to contend for the next 10 years, let alone the next 2 before JTR hits free agency.

    • Only people like you think they know 10 years in the future.
      Talk about facts when you’re trolling, then you say things like this

      #simpleminds

      1

      • 10 years…thank you for your contribution to the conversation…be gone now please.

      • Seriously, what cause for optimism is there with the Cincinnati Reds? They play in the 2nd most loaded division in baseball (AL East is first) and seem intent on botching their rebuild every chance they get.

        1

        • NL East might be second at this point. Or it might well be by the end of the offseason.

  15. I really hope they don’t trade Trammell. He is a really good dude and good player.

    Just a little personal story. We had tickets next to the Dayton Dragons dugout for a few games in 2017. I have a (now) 2 and a half year old daughter and a lot of the players (including Trammell) would high five her through the net coming back in each inning. Well, we ran into him at Reds Fest last year and Taylor played with my daughter for about 10 minutes. My daughter had just gotten glasses before then so she kind of stands out and people remember her. I had tweeted him right after and he replied and said it was the best time of his Reds Fest.

    Fast forward to this year and we go through his line at Reds Fest to get his autograph. He looks at my daughter and says, “hey, I remember you.” I really hope he stays with the Reds, but we’ll definitely be rooting for him no matter where he is.

    9

    • Thanks for posting that. Always nice to read about kind hearted players. That kind of character is a great thing to have in your club.

      2

  16. SMH, we don’t need a catcher. I sure hope this is just smoke being blown up One’s a**.

  17. I hope that Taylor Trammell has just an illustrious career as his father Alan.

  18. With Realmuto the Reds finish 22 games behind first place instead of 32 games but will finish dead last regardless. Because they’re bad.

    1

    • They’ll be as good as their pitching. If they add 2 good pitchers they’re good enough to compete for playoffs.

      • So the Reds are going to acquire two more pitchers that will get them 30 more wins?

  20. Please pass whatever you are smoking. The Cards won 88 games in 2018. They added Goldschmidt. They have Bader, Hudson, and Reyes all year. Waino showed late that when healthy he can come, and Wacha is healthy. Paired with Mikolas, Martinez and Flaherty their rotation is. force. Ozuna will be healthier and Fowler cannot be worse and that is if they don’t still make a move for a left hand power bat there. The bull pen was much better in the second half and they will still add a quality lefty there. Matheny is gone and the defense is improved with the Carp/Gyroko platoon and Goldy at first and a full year of O’Neill as backup outfielder. They will still add a backup catcher that will be a better sub for Molina. Looks like a 95 win season and the Reds while better won’t approach that number.

    • Good to see you have everything figured out. By your account, the Cards should win 125 games.

      • He stated in his post that he expects them to be a 95 win team. How in the world is that the same thing as saying they are a 125 win team?

        • Because if everything in his post happens, and all these guys do as well as he thinks, they will win way more than 95

    • It seems like Reds fans might be the delusional ones. I’m not sure where all the contention talk is coming from for a 4 year in a row last place finisher who finished last year with less wins than the previous two. This is also in a division that had the two teams who finished tied for the most wins in the NL and had a third (Cardinals) who just missed the playoffs so it’s not like it’s the AL Central

      There aren’t two 10 WAR pitchers out there much less 5 WAR pitchers available that are going to suddenly make them a overnight contender. They have a solid system and shouldn’t jump the gun on the rebuild in my opinion. Trading for a catcher with 2 years on his deal when that’s not an area of weakness would be a mistake for a team that finished 28.5 games out.

      3

    • Alright, what was the comment that YOU didn’t like and so Braves fans online are now dillusion like?

  22. Horrible being a Marlins fan. If we had money and kept everyone we’ve dumped since 2005 we woukd have been a top 3 team yearly. Now yelich is an MVP and we are dumping our catcher. It’s a BS situation and we can’t really even compete

    2

    • I can understand the frustation. I was furious ( and still am) over the Yelich deal. Stanton and Ozuna didn’t hurt as much. Yelich should’ve never been traded. At worst, Fish should’ve done with Yelich what they’re doing now with JTR and demand a big return. Bcuz the one they received although isn’t terrible, right now is looking even more lopsided. We’ll know for sure in 2-3 years

      Having said that, I don’t believe money will be the issue in the longterm and they’re constructing the team in a more efficient manner than the previous regime. I’m still a Marlins fan and will continue to support the team.

      I’m cautiously optimistic Fish will get it right, for once.

      • At the time of the trade the Marlins got a T30 prospect in Brinson, a T100 prospect in Harrison, a former T100 prospect in Diaz and a young arm that had good numbers. Yelich was barely playing at an All-Star level let alone an MVP level before the trade. Yes, hindsight is always 20/20 but at the time that was a pretty sizable return. The return the Marlins got still could provide solid regulars. Yamamoto posted good number all year and looked stellar in Fall League and Harrison had a nice 2nd half in AA. I would give Brinson some time too before you rule him a bust

        • Brinson (the headliner of the trade) is one more bad season away from being a complete bust.

  24. I don’t buy the Reds as a serious player unless they’re either part of a 3 team trade, or they plan on instantly flipping him for a package they deem more desirable than what they initially trade.

  26. I find this hilarious!!!! If the Marlins trade Realmuto for Trammell & Barnhart, Jeter should be stripped of ownership. Amed Rosario, by himself, is far more valuable than these two guys. Heck, Brandon Nimmo is better. Marlins are a clueless organization, that cares more about not trading with one of their division rivals rather than get the best package offered. Horrible way to run a team. Good luck Marlins fans with this moronic front office running your team.

    1

  27. I hope the Reds like that draft pick they get for Scooter Gennett next year!

  29. Marlins need infield, catching, and pitching help. I think they have plenty of OF prospects and options. It’s much harder to find Infielders than outfielders. If they make a trade with the reds, they need to get Senzel.

    • Won’t happen. It would have to be a goldmine, and Miami doesn’t even have coal…for two years of Realmuto isn’t nearly enough…

      • You’re right about that. But if they can’t get Senzel, I think they should look elsewhere. In my opinion, I think they should try and get Gimenez and Alonso from the Mets. If it’s 2-1 trade then do it.

  30. I wonder what the game plan would be? Reds don’t appear ready to contend. Hmmmm? I smell a flip. Maybe they couldn’t work out a proper 3 team trade so the Red/Marlins might work out something where hey get the prospects they like from the Reds and the Reds have worked out something with another team?

  31. Not biting on this either. All of these “expert” journalists just can’t wait for the Reds to throw Trammel into a deal, so they can trash them for it. All they ever do is throw crap at a wall and hope something sticks so they can say, “I had that first”…ridiculous

  32. Sign Gio. Trade homer, Gutierrez and long for puig and wood. Send ginett to NYY for Gray and Frazier. Put Senzel at 2b. Infield, platoon OF and rotation are covered with an extra pitcher. If that’s not quite enough, sign Soria or Ottavino and we’re back!!

  33. Half of the Reds just dont seem true, but one thing is true, they’re still not backing up their bark.

  34. Barnhart, Trammell, and Vlad Gutierrez seems about right for Realmuto.

      • I’d imagine the Reds’ true value ask would be somewhere in between and the Marlins decline. Trammel is a big future piece and JT is great, but for only 2 years in Cincy. Best for the Reds to focus on SP.

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