Baseball continues to evolve each and every year. It’s the evolution, rather than the revolution, that I enjoy watching. From a defensive lens, the modern day catching position looks very different to eras gone by, even 5-7 years ago positional priorities were very different. Modern day catchers at MLB level have grown up learning the positions “new school” skills and techniques. Current players on the back end of their careers like JT Realmuto, Austin Barnes or Salvador Perez have successfully advanced their skills to keep up with the changes and also continued to defensively perform at a high level.  

A season preview podcast from the Just Baseball Podcast (a recommended pod for sure) ranked their Top 10 catchers for 2026. As a Phillies fan and catching coach, I was shocked and partially annoyed that our guy JT Realmuto was ranked outside of the top 10, with an honorable mention. The JB crew noted that JT simply got squeezed by a wave of new and developing catchers, and their offensive projections. After the 2025 huge offensive season, unsurprisingly Cal Raleigh ranked at the top of the list, closely followed by the likes of Will Smith, William Contreras and Alejandro Kirk. In 2026 the Phillies renewed his contract with a 3 year $45m deal at the age of 34, making him the equal  highest paid catcher in MLB alongside Cal Raleigh.  

With the recent All Star Game unofficially marking the “half way mark of the season”, I thought I would take a look at how and why JT Realmuto has slipped in the rankings. With JT  moving towards the latter part of his career, does he or can he still perform as one of the best catchers in baseball and was the Just Baseball guys evaluation justified? As a Phillies fan, of course I still believe(d) that he is still performing at a high level, but what do the numbers say? Now, I would argue that there are areas of JT’s game stacks up with any one of these outstanding catchers and overall I don’t really disagree with the Pod. The Just Baseball guys overall rating had JT lower based on declining offensive metrics and the expectation that in 2026 his numbers would continue to decline. So, with this lens I wanted to focus this analysis primarily on (seasons 2020-2025): 

• whether his numbers stack up for that rating  

• is his age really playing a part in his apparent decline  

• what are those declines, is he even declining at all 

• is his output still impacting or contribution to his team 

• how has the first half of the season stacked up