The Philadelphia Phillies are carrying three catchers on their 26-man roster, and Rafael Marchán is one of them. That alone would be unusual. The bigger problem is that Marchán has produced a.275 OPS across 21 contests, a figure that underscores how little offense the group has provided.
Marchán has been described as the primary backup catcher, but the role has not come with much production. J.T. Realmuto has handled most of the playing time and still has only a.595 OPS, while Garrett Stubbs has a.569 OPS over 10 games. The Phillies do not just have a crowded catching room. They have a crowded catching room without much hitting to justify it.
That is why the arrangement feels so awkward. Most clubs carry two catchers because two is usually enough, and a third backstop rarely brings much value unless he is changing games in some other way. Here, none of the three have helped much at the plate, and the club’s recent turnaround has come almost entirely from pitching. The offensive numbers make that hard to ignore.
Stubbs adds to the case that something could change, even if nothing has changed yet. He had not taken three at-bats since May 15 and appeared in only two games since then, both times as a pinch runner and a defensive replacement. That leaves open the possibility that he could deserve more playing time. It also leaves the Phillies with three catchers on the roster and no clean answer for how to use them all.
For now, Marchán remains part of a roster construction that looks heavy at one spot and thin where it matters most. If the Phillies make a move, it will almost certainly come down to whether they want to keep carrying extra catching depth or finally trim the logjam around a position that has not produced enough to hold it together.
