The Phillies and Rays are deep in talks on a trade involving All-Star catcher Wilson Ramos, per a Tuesday report from Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports:
Sources: Phillies and Rays are deep into talks on a deal for Wilson Ramos.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 31, 2018
The Phillies have gotten solid production from their catching tandem of Jorge Alfaro (.254/.305/.398 with seven homers in 275 PAs) and Andrew Knapp (.223/.318/.372 with four homers in 170 PAs), but Ramos — a two-time All-Star and 2016 Silver Slugger — would take their catching position to a whole new level.
While Ramos is currently on the disabled list with a hamstring strain, he’s capable of being one of the league’s best offensive catchers when healthy: In 315 plate appearances this season, he’s posted an outstanding .297/.346/.488 slash line with 14 homers. With the Rays having acquired catcher Michael Perez from the Diamondbacks in last week’s Matt Andriese trade (and seemingly trading almost every valuable player they have), Ramos is expendable, especially since he’s a free agent at the end of this season and will likely be too expensive for the Rays to re-sign.
He’d surely provide a huge boost to a Phillies team that sits at 58-48 and currently has a half-game lead in the NL East.