Rumors: the Atlanta Braves are looking at catcher J.T. Realmuto

The Corresponding Roster Moves

There are three aspects to what would become “the rest of this story”:

• What to do with Travis d’Arnaud
• How Realmuto could be afforded
• Who plays Left Field

d’Arnaud is making $8 million this season and clearly profiles as an every-day starting catcher.  But you don’t sign Realmuto and then platoon him with Td’A… so for all the right reasons, he’d immediately become trade-bait.  And there would be interest in him.

You always need “in case of emergency, break glass” backup catching, but the quality of such a player diminishes greatly if Realmuto is on board.

For that, I refer you to an earlier look at the possible options that the Braves in the market have for such a backup backstop.  In this case, you could also add Alex Jackson and William Contreras to the list — who could be added virtually for free (league minimum cost).

Td’A could be traded… but where?  Turns out there are multiple options:

• (Back) to the Blue Jays for one of their surplus outfielders… solving the Braves LF problem.
• to the Red Sox for Andrew Benintendi… also solving the LF problem.
• to the Angels for… well, it’s not going to be Jo Adell, but I’m sure they could find somebody of interest.

That’s all just off the top of my head.  Even if a LF trade isn’t in the cards, then there are still hitters like Eddie Rosario still available on the open market.  Or a reunion with Adam Duvall (less likely).  Or others we’ve talked about incessantly this Winter.

Getting more creative, if the Braves were to find a new home for Ender Inciarte, there would be some additional monies (not a lot, but some) to help offset a Realmuto signing.

So between this pair, moving them elsewhere could offset perhaps half the cost of Realmuto’s contract (with neither on the books after 2021 anyway).

The bottom lines are these:  it’s going to take a serious commitment (probably 5 years at $23-to-24 million each) to get Realmuto.  It’s also a game-changing move — assuming the other work noted is completed — that would push this franchise to the level of a bona fide World Series contender.

The rest of the pieces of this puzzle are already in place.  We’re just waiting, it seems, on that last corner piece to be installed.

So yes:  this rumor certainly would require a lot of “moving parts” in order to be fully realized.  But that’s why having it come up at all is so fascinating.

A signing of J.T. Realmuto by the Atlanta Braves — as unlikely as that might still be — would be that “all in” move that we’ve been waiting for.