If only the injuries would stop, they’d be thoroughly set behind the plate.
Tyler Stephenson stayed healthy for the bulk of the 2023 and 2024 seasons, racking up 1032 PA in that time. Some 782 of those PA came behind the plate as a catcher, with that number ranking 10th among all catchers across those two seasons, Seattle’s Cal Raleigh (1039) leading the pack in that particular category.
Stephenson’s offense took off again in 2024, his 114 wRC+ ranking 6th among catchers who logged at least 300 PA at the postion. With a pair of years of team control remaining entering the 2025 regular season, he seems poised to continue as the catching option for the Cincinnati Reds for the present.
So, it may see odd on the surface to see the Reds – a typically spendthrift franchise – invest an additional guaranteed $11.5 million in catcher Jose Trevino through at least the 2026 season, with the former Texas Ranger and New York Yankee already under contract for nearly $3.5 million for the 2025 season. That deal includes a $6.5 million club option for 2027 when Trevino will be 34 years of age, the kind of money that’s often reserved for ‘starting’ catchers who fall just below the upper-echelon at the position.
Clearly, Cincinnati sees something well beyond the career 75 OPS+ Trevino carries at the position. They dealt oft-electric reliever Fernando Cruz to New York to acquire him this offseason and have doled out an extension to him before he ever dons the club’s regular season uniform. The former Gold Glove (and Platinum Glove) winner holds a reputation as one of the game’s elite pitch framers, for one, and it’s evident that he has built quite the rapport with the young Cincinnati pitching staff (and pitching czar Derek Johnson) in short order.
What this deal means is that Cincinnati has built in incredible depth at one of the most volatile positions on the roster, as Stephenson’s pending start to the season on the injured list helps emphasize. No, Trevino didn’t need an extension to simply serve as the team’s starter to begin 2025 while Stephenson recovers, but Trevino’s own injury scare with a foul ball last week just layers the cake that is ‘you need pitching depth as far as the eye can see’ even more.
The extension serves not just as depth, but as leverage. Stephenson is one of the prime players on the Cincinnati roster in need of an extension if he’s to be around at a reasonably affordable rate for the Reds, his team control up after the end of 2026. Since the next catcher up in the team’s system is a murky mess surrounding 19 year old Alfredo Duno, who has barely played as a professional yet, getting Trevino under contract at a market rate at least gives the Reds a fallback option should longer-term negotiations with Stephenson fail to materialize and it becomes clear he’s eyeing free agency.
On the flip side, any longer-term deal the Reds manage to negotiate to keep Stephenson around would not preclude them from dealing away Trevino to reallocate their thrifty money, either. A deal like the one Trevino is now on is hardly immovable, especially if he shows that his last two injury-plagued years are behind him and the friendly confines of GABP help his offense play up.
It continues a trend where the Reds are letting their young, controllable depth at other positions battle it out for hierarchy while investing via both contract and trade to augment their weaknesses. That’s what they did with the starting rotation by acquiring Brady Singer and betting on the recovering Wade Miley, in the outfield with Austin Hays, and now at catcher with Trevino.
Would it be cool if they’d landed a superstar at any of those positions? Sure, but that was never in the cards here. They’re still betting their young crop produces another star alongside Elly De La Cruz and Hunter Greene and spending at the fringes on support staff, spending money on depth and insurance instead of splashing it on past production.