The Catching Problem Is Banner's Most Urgent Offseason Decision

Adley Rutschman is listed third on Baltimore's catching depth chart. That sentence alone explains a lot about what Jared Banner walked into. The team's only All-Star this season — traded to Boston before the deadline — still shows up in the organizational ledger because the roster reshuffling left him there, a ghost in the depth chart behind Samuel Basallo and Carlos Narváez. Basallo finished the year with a solid line and 12 home runs in 67 games, which is a reasonable foundation. What's behind him is not.

The injury pile compounds everything. Keegan Akin is coming off Tommy John surgery. Several other key contributors spent time on the 60-day IL, and the bullpen infrastructure that Banner inherited is thinner than the win-loss record suggests. The Orioles went 79-82, which is a number that obscures how much of the season was managed on fumes after the deadline trades stripped the roster of its most productive pieces. This is the third consecutive season without a playoff appearance, following a 91-win campaign in 2024 that now feels like a different organization.

Banner has already made one clean call — declining Luis Robert's $20 million option for 2027 — which signals he's not going to carry expensive dead weight while rebuilding. My read is that catching is where the offseason either starts well or doesn't start at all. Basallo is the one piece worth building around behind the plate. Everything else at that position needs work, and Banner knows it.