J.T. Realmuto did a Zoom call with media on Thursday, and politely asked reporters to steer the discussion away from contract talks if possible.

“I’d appreciate if we can keep the questions away from the contract situation,” the Phillies All-Star catcher said. “Just because we were in the really preliminary stages early on in Spring Training before the pandemic and we haven’t really gone anywhere since then.”

Yeah no problem, though the his future is probably issue #1 surrounding the Phils right now, global pandemic not included.

Todd Zolecki dropped a nugget about the Realmuto contract talks in a story for MLB.com, writing this:

A source said Thursday that the Phillies and Realmuto’s agent have talked recently, but nothing is close. In fact, the best bet at this point is that Realmuto hits the open market and the Phillies try to sign him then. Phillies general manager Matt Klentak said late last month that “the landscape we left in March is going to be different than the one we return to now, and we just have to see how that manifests itself in our discussions. We still love the player. We’d still love to have him in red pinstripes for the long haul, but there’s a lot of uncertainty in the game right now on a variety of levels, so we just need to factor that all in.”

My take:

The landscape doesn’t matter. This is about how much John Middleton and the Phillies really want to win. You’re either all-in or you’re all-out. Don’t pay Bryce Harper $330 million and talk about getting that “fucking trophy back,” then turn around one season later to nitpick a few million dollars in a long-term contract for the best catcher in baseball.

This should have been done before the pandemic. We all agree on that, correct? I don’t think I’ve seen or heard a single person warn against signing Realmuto to a deal that keeps him in a Phillies uniform for the foreseeable future.

Let’s end the story with this: