Will the Phillies actually lighten Realmuto's workload this year?

This story was excerpted from the Phillies Beat newsletter, written this week by Paul Casella. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

PHILADELPHIA -- No other catcher has come close to matching J.T. Realmuto's workload over the past decade.

While the Phillies have talked multiple times about wanting to pull back on that a bit in recent years, they might finally be doing it.

"I just don't think him catching five, six days in a row at this point in the season makes a lot of sense," interim manager Don Mattingly said this week. "We’re going to try to keep him stronger through the course of the season."

Now, it's not as if Realmuto had done that a whole lot in past seasons either. He started five straight days behind the plate just twice last season -- and both came after the All-Star break (July 25-29 and Aug. 1-5).

Still, he started 132 games and caught more innings (1,151 1/3) than anyone else. Of course, that's nothing new for Realmuto, whose 6,966 2/3 innings behind the dish since joining the Phillies in 2019 are by far the most in the Majors during that span. Will Smith is second at 5,811 1/3 innings, meaning no other player is within even a thousand innings of Realmuto.

Overall, Realmuto has caught 192,337 pitches in his career. That's more than 25,000 more than anyone else since 2014 (Salvador Perez is second at 166,798).

That's a lot of foul balls off the mask -- and just about everywhere else on his body.

"J.T. is tough. I know he wants to play, and he wants to be in there every day, and we appreciate that," Mattingly said. "But again, I think sometimes you have to save guys from themselves and try to give them days here and there."

There's also the fact that Realmuto -- who has caught 130-plus games in three of the past four seasons -- turned 35 years old in March. And while he takes care of his body as well as anyone with countless hours of work, there's still very little track record of catchers taking down that many innings at this point in careers.

Over the past 50 years, only two players have started 130 games at catcher in their age-35 season or older: Jason Kendall in 2009 and former Phillies backstop Bob Boone, who incredibly did it four straight years from 1983-86 with the Angels.

Realmuto has started 31 of the club's first 48 games this season. He missed 11 games due to back spasms, an issue that ultimately forced him into a 10-day IL stint in late April. That was just his third trip to the IL in his seven seasons with the Phillies (right knee in 2024 and left wrist in '21).

"If we get to the point where [we need him] every day, as much as he can, then that's where we’ll get to," Mattingly said. "But the early part of the year, and kind of coming off that back thing, there's no reason to have to push."