Franklin Arias has a bright future in Boston. Signed out of Venezuela in 2023, the 20-year-old shortstop is the top position-player prospect in the Red Sox system thanks to plus tools on both sides of the ball. A slick-fielder — Eric Longenhagen has described him as an incredibly polished defender for his age” — Arias possesses a line-drive stroke that produced a 109 wRC+ across three levels last season. And while that number may not jump off the page, it stands out when put into context: the Caracas native not only played the entire year as a teenager, he finished it in Double-A.
The degree to which he can boost his power profile will go a long way toward determining his ceiling. Currently more contact than pop, Arias went deep just eight times in 526 plate appearances. At a listed 5-foot-11, 170 pounds, he is by no means built like a bopper.
Red Sox farm director Brian Abraham brought up that aspect of Arias’s game when I asked him about the young infielder earlier this week.
“He’s a guy who makes really good swing decisions,” Abraham said of Arias, who posted a 10.1% strikeout rate and a 5.3% swinging-strike rate in 2025. “He puts the bat on the ball and can drive it to all fields. We’re looking to see him add size and strength so that he can really impact the ball pull-side in the air.
“It’s definitely in there,” added Abraham. “We’ve seen flashes of it, it’s just a matter of him being able to do that on a consistent basis. As a young player who is continuing to grow and get bigger, I think it will come out the more he is able to hit the ball out front and drive it to the pull side. Right now I would say that he is a contact hitter with occasional power, and that the power can be more consistent than it has been.”
Not surprisingly, Arias echoed Abraham’s thoughts when addressing his near-term development goals. Read the rest of this entry »
Never let anyone tell you that there are no rebounds in baseball. That’s utter nonsense, and it is our responsibility to say so. If you need evidence to support your rebuttal, just look at what happened this past week in free agency.
Since our last mailbag ran, Alex Bregman signed a five-year, $175 million contract to play for the Cubs after opting out of the deal he signed last February with the Red Sox. The Cubs knew they weren’t in the running to re-sign Bregman’s former Astros teammate, Kyle Tucker, so they instead beefed up their lineup with the third baseman. In response to missing out on Bregman, Boston bounced back with someone completely different, agreeing to a five-year, $130 million deal with left-handed starting pitcher Ranger Suárez, phormerly of the Phillies, who had spent much of the first half of January courting Bo Bichette, whose long-time team, the Blue Jays, had their sights set on Tucker, the top-ranked free agent of the offseason. It seemed that Tucker was choosing between Toronto and the Mets, and was nearing a decision, when at the last minute the Dodgers swooped in with a four-year, $240 million offer that Tucker simply couldn’t turn down. Spurned by Tucker, the Mets splurged on Friday, snatching up Bichette for at least one season (the deal can max out at three years and $126 million) before Philadelphia could do it. Not long after, the Phillies phinally phigured they should stop playing the phield and instead rekindle an old phlame; they re-signed catcher J.T. Realmuto to a three-year, $45 million contract.
For those of you keeping score at home, the Cubs rebounded from Tucker with Bregman; the Red Sox rebounded from Bregman with Suárez; the Phillies rebounded from Suárez and Bichette with Realmuto; and the Mets rebounded from their failed pursuit of Tucker with Bichette. That leaves the Blue Jays as the one team still looking for a rebound. Tune in next week to find out if they turned to Cody Bellinger to help them get over Tucker. We won’t be covering baseball’s newest hit Realmutality TV series for the remainder of today’s mailbag. If you want to go behind the scenes of all the drama, all the tea is linked in the quick recap above, or you can go deeper by reading Jon Becker’s latest Matrix Reloaded column. Instead, we’ll be answering your questions about the most exciting potential World Baseball Classic matchups, the WAR value of Edwin Encarnación’s parrot, and an alternative universe in which the PCL teams joined Major League Baseball back in the late 1950s. But first, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a flurry of transactions and a three-team-trade dilemma, then break down the J.T. Realmuto, Bo Bichette, and Kyle Tucker deals, plus talk of baseball economics and Emmanuel Clase’s roosters.
Finally, the stars aligned to get us back on the Friday Matrix Reloaded schedule, and boy did they align! Nos. 1, 2, 8, and 9 on Ben Clemens’ Top 50 Free Agents list signed since we last checked in, leaving just two of the top 10 remaining. We also saw a three-team trade reported about a minute after our top free agent signed, and some two-teamers of significance, too.
As always, you can find the colorful Offseason Matrices spreadsheet here. Let’s get into the events of the last 11 days.
Well, that’s a relief. On Friday afternoon, the Phillies, spurned by Bo Bichette, got swept up in the tidal wave of hot stove transactions, agreeing to a three-year, $45 million deal (plus $15 million in incentives) to keep J.T. Realmuto in Philadelphia, according to Ken Rosenthal and Matt Gelb of The Athletic. You may have your qualms about rebounding from a rejection by signing a catcher three years into his decline phase for another three years, but consider what other options the Phillies had, and then consider how weird it would have felt to watch Realmuto playing in another uniform after all this time. It’s probably too many years, and that’s not great, but look at everything else that’s going on in the world right now and realize how much nicer it is to spend a moment thinking about something that’s merely not great.
Before we dive into the here and now, let’s take this chance to remind ourselves just how special a career Realmuto has had. He debuted with the Marlins in 2014 and blossomed into a star in 2017, combining excellent defense with a great bat and an exquisite baserunning prowess unbefitting a backstop. (He currently ranks 23rd all-time among catchers with 104 stolen bases. If we limit ourselves to 1901 and later, he moves up to 11th.) Such things were never meant for Miami. In February 2019, after he’d put up two four-win seasons and earned an All-Star nod and a Silver Slugger, the Marlins traded him to Philadelphia for a blockbuster package that netted them 2.0 total WAR and $250,000 in international bonus pool money. Realmuto got even better the next season.
From 2017 to 2022, Realmuto wasn’t just the best catcher in baseball; there was an ocean between him and the rest of the competition. He led all catchers with 28.2 WAR. Yasmani Grandal, in second place, had just 19.6. Of the 207 catchers who played during that stretch, Grandal and future Hall of Famer Buster Posey were the only ones whose WAR total Realmuto didn’t double. Over that stretch, he tops our leaderboards at the plate, on the basepaths, and on defense, and nobody else is even close. Realmuto has earned two Gold Gloves, two Silver Sluggers, three All-Star nods, and MVP votes in two seasons. He has a career 104 wRC+ in the playoffs. It’s great that the Phillies have held onto him. He’ll reach 200 career home runs in Philadelphia. He’s the team’s longest-tenured position player, ahead of Bryce Harper by roughly a month and trailing only Aaron Nola on the pitching side. He’s a grinder, the heart of a Phillies team that has been at the top of the league for years now. Still, you know the problem as well as I do.
It’s not 2022 anymore, and Realmuto has got so, so many miles on his knees. He has caught at least 125 games seven different times, and led the league in innings caught in three of the last four seasons. He ranks seventh in innings caught since 2002. Two of the guys ahead of him played through their age-39 seasons. One is a manager now.
Realmuto started looking human in 2023, and he missed a couple months due to a meniscectomy in 2024. Over the past three years, he’s run a perfectly average 100 wRC+. That’s still plenty good for a catcher, but it dropped to 94 in 2025, and advanced numbers like DRC+ have him even lower. Although he hit the ball just about as hard as ever, his bat speed took a very scary dive from the 70th percentile in 2024 to the 47th in 2025, and his barrel rate followed suit. Realmuto once feasted on four-seamers, but over the past three seasons, he’s put up negative run values against them. He started struggling with cutters in 2024 and sinkers in 2025, meaning he now struggles against any kind of fastball.
He has combined this weaker bat with poor framing numbers, and despite still possessing plenty of speed, he’s even started to take on water in the baserunning department. Put it together, and Realmuto has recorded almost exactly 2.0 WAR in each of the past three seasons. Despite all the doom and gloom I just laid on you, that’s not just a useful player, it’s an above-average catcher.
It makes Realmuto the best option behind the plate on the Phillies roster, ahead of Rafael Marchán and Garrett Stubbs. Likewise, it made Realmuto the top-ranked catcher on our Top 50 Free Agents list, where he came in at 30th overall. Wouldn’t you rather have him than Danny Jansen or Victor Caratini, who ranked 38th and 39th? In 2025, you definitely would, but projections pegged Realmuto for a two-year deal with an average annual value of $13 million. Instead, he’s making $15 million for an extra year, which will be, once again, the age-37 season of the guy who already ranks seventh in innings caught this century. Still, there was no better catcher on the trading block, and unless the Tyrell Corporation has started manufacturing them while I wasn’t paying attention, we’ve now exhausted all the ways by which a baseball team can get its hands on a baseball player.
Everything makes sense here. The Phillies are a win-now team that’s already above the highest luxury tax threshold. It’s hard to blame them for holding onto the best catcher available to them, especially when he’s a guy they love – a guy they and their fans are capable of appreciating far more deeply than anybody else is – for a year and a few million dollars more than would be ideal. Three years is not forever, and Realmuto now has an excellent chance at ending his career as a Phillie. It’ll be OK. Try to enjoy your weekend.
Bichette and the Dodgers had been in discussions over a short-term, high-AAV deal like the one Tucker ultimately signed, but Bichette, like most free agents, seemed to be interested in a contract with more term and overall value, but a lower annual salary. Back in August, I made a case for Bichette to cash in by pitching him as Trea Turner, but slow. And when America went to bed on Thursday, the smart money was on Bichette signing with the Phillies, who had already invested $300 million in Original Recipe Turner.
The Mets were reeling from Tucker’s rejection, amidst mortifying vagueposting from Steve Cohen. (Seriously, if you’re worth more than $500 million, you should not be allowed on social media.) But credit to Cohen and David Stearns, who suddenly found themselves with $220 million earmarked for Tucker, and no Tucker to spend that money on. They not only grabbed the next-best bat left on the market, in so doing they put a finger in the eye of their division rival. Read the rest of this entry »
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
2026 BBWAA Candidate: Daniel Murphy
Player
Pos
Career WAR
Peak WAR
JAWS
H
HR
SB
AVG/OBP/SLG
OPS+
Daniel Murphy
2B
20.8
18.7
19.7
1,572
138
68
.296/.341/.455
113
Source: Baseball-Reference
Daniel Murphy was not a home run hitter. Over the course of a 12-year major league career that was interrupted by knee injuries, he reached double digits in just seven seasons, topping 20 homers just twice. Like Howie Kendrick — another Jacksonville-born second baseman debuting on this Hall of Fame ballot, one who even played on the same team as Murphy in 2017–18 — the lefty-swinging, righty-throwing Murphy was known for his exceptional bat-to-ball ability. And like Kendrick, he went on a memorable, power-driven October run and won NLCS MVP honors. In 2015, he set a record by homering in six straight postseason games, carrying the Mets to their first pennant in 15 years. While it didn’t culminate in a championship, it earned him an indelible spot in postseason history; without that run, he probably wouldn’t even be on this ballot.
…
Daniel Thomas Murphy was born on April 1, 1985 in Jacksonville, Florida, the oldest of three children of Tom and Sharon Murphy. Tom taught kindergarten while Sharon sold insurance (in one amusing anecdote, an 11-year-old Murphy declared he wanted to be “an insurance person” for his school yearbook). Younger brother Jonathan (b. 1990) was a 19th-round pick by the Twins in 2012 and spent three seasons as an outfielder in their minor league system. Read the rest of this entry »
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Our annual preview of free agency doesn’t include projected destinations for free agents. I don’t know if that has always been a site-wide editorial decision, but it’s one I wholeheartedly agree with. Predicting how much money someone will get is hard enough. Predicting which team out of many similar teams will give that money to them is essentially guesswork; sure, matching names to teams has entertainment value, but it’s hard to actually be good at it. Except, if you made me predict where Willi Castro would have signed before this offseason started, I absolutely would have picked the Rockies, and voila: Castro agreed to a two-year, $12.8 million deal with Colorado on Thursday.
The Rockies haven’t been players in free agency for a number of years, though that appears to be changing. Earlier this month, they signedMichael Lorenzen to a $8 million contract, the largest deal they’ve given to a pitcher in the 2020s. Castro’s deal is the biggest guarantee they’ve handed out to a free agent since Charlie Blackmon, and that hardly counts, what with him being a long-time Rockie signing the last deal of his career and all. Really, Castro is the team’s biggest signing since Kris Bryant, which says a lot about how the past few years have gone in Colorado.
What compelled the team to wade into the free agent position player pool – the shallow end, to be sure – for the first time in years? Signing a good major league player, that’s what. Castro is a versatile defender who won’t embarrass you offensively. In 2025 alone, he logged 100 innings at four different positions, plus cameos at shortstop and in center field. He’s not a standout at any of those spots, but the sheer flexibility is inarguably useful. Roster Castro, and you have a nice backup plan nearly everywhere. He’s a switch-hitter, too, so he can shore up any of the positions where you’d really prefer a platoon, regardless of who his platoon partner might be. Read the rest of this entry »
Eric A Longenhagen: Hey there, folks. Good morning from the kitchen island in Tempe, I’m stoked to see some guys throw bullpens and take BP today. First day of school feeling and all that.
12:03
Eric A Longenhagen: I’ve got a hard out at 11 (I have a radio hit to do and then wanna hustle to Diablo for the Dream Series workouts) so let’s get rolling.
12:03
Jim: Where does Colome rank among A’s prospects?
12:04
Eric A Longenhagen: Probably 4th or 5th
12:06
Eric A Longenhagen: I’ll take Jump and Morales over him for sure, maybe Barnett belongs with those guys. Arnold v Colome or maybe something like Montero v Colome are good questions tbd
12:06
go cards: what do you make of joshua baez’s contact improvements in 2025? outside chance at him being stuffed for 2026?
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