Gabriel Moreno just turned in the best season a Diamondbacks catcher has ever had, and that alone has put the front office in a tricky spot.
The numbers are eye-opening. No Arizona catcher had ever even cracked five bWAR before this year.
Miguel Montero’s 4.5 bWAR in 2012 had stood as the standard for a full-time catcher, and Daulton Varsho’s 4.9 in 2022 came with only eighteen starts behind the plate. Moreno blew past all of that with 6.7 bWAR, which also put him fourth among National League position players.
Since the end of 2015, only Ketel Marte and Gerardo Perdomo have posted a higher figure for the Diamondbacks. He’s also on track to become just the second catcher ever, after Joe Mauer, to win the batting title, Gold Glove and Silver Slugger in the same season.
That kind of year creates a real dilemma. Moreno is under contract through the end of 2028, and extension talks have already come up.
Back in July, team president Derrick Hall said, “We love Gabi, and we’ve had those conversations in the past with him and I’m sure we’ll continue to have conversations with him about his future because he has become a mainstay.” Still, while Brandon Pfaadt and Geraldo Perdomo have landed long-term deals, Moreno remains on a year-to-year path and is about to enter his second year of arbitration.
That arbitration number is going to jump sharply from where he was. Moreno made just $2.55 million this season, and MLB Trade Rumors is projecting $6.1 million for 2027.
Even that would look like a bargain if he keeps producing at this level. The bigger change this year was availability: Moreno played in 130 games, a career high, after appearing in 111 in 2023.
The catching workload was the same in both seasons - 104 games at catcher - but this year included 25 games at DH, compared with just one two years ago.
The uncomfortable truth is that his trade value may never be higher. Two years of control, a premium position and a season that looks like top-five MVP territory would bring back a serious package.
The problem is obvious: who catches then? The organization does have two catching prospects in Ryder Helfrick and Carlos Virahonda.
Helfrick was drafted in June and is only 21. Virahonda is younger still, though more advanced, having gotten a cup of coffee at Double-A last season.
Even so, 2028 is the earliest he should be expected.
A trade would only really make sense if the Diamondbacks were tearing things down and didn’t care about losing six wins. For an 86-win team that got stuck in the wrong league, that doesn’t sound like the plan. But extending Moreno would not come cheap either.
Cal Raleigh offers the clearest comparison. He signed a six-year, $105 million extension with the Mariners in March 2025, before his 60-homer season, after his age-27 year.
He had posted 4.6 bWAR and had two arbitration years left, just like Moreno does now. Raleigh got a full no-trade clause as part of the deal.
He also brought more durability to the table: over the two seasons before that extension, he averaged 149 games and 120 starts a year at catcher. Moreno, even with his career-high workload in 2026, has averaged 106 games and 82 starts per season.
The timing cuts both ways. This is probably the best moment to trade Moreno, but also the worst moment to extend him, because the deal would be based on what could end up being his peak.
He didn’t hit 60 homers, but a Gold Glove and a batting title go a long way toward balancing the scales. In terms of overall value, Raleigh’s 7.2 bWAR and Moreno’s 6.7 were pretty close.
If the Diamondbacks did go long-term, a six-year deal would cover the two arbitration seasons and four years of free agency, running through Moreno’s age-32 season. Catchers can still be productive at that age.
Over the last decade, thirteen catchers have reached at least 2.5 bWAR at age 32 or older. But the team would still be paying for a player who is likely to be moving down the aging curve, while younger and cheaper options might be waiting in the wings.
There are examples on both sides of the ledger. Buster Posey’s nine-year, $167 million deal with the Giants was expensive, but it produced 32.4 bWAR.
Joe Mauer’s eight-year, $184 million contract with the Twins, signed in March 2010, covered 2011 through 2018; he averaged 128 games and produced 22.4 bWAR, though he had to stop catching less than halfway through it. Sean Murphy’s deal with the Braves is the cautionary version: over the past three years, he has made $39 million and been worth less than four bWAR, with two more years and $30 million still left.
A lot of this comes back to the bigger picture. Arizona pushed all the way to the final weekend this season and will hope to stay in the race in 2027.
But no one knows when that window really opens, and 2028 is even murkier. If the club believes contention can stretch across several seasons, locking up a core catcher makes sense.
If not, the smarter play may be to cash in Moreno’s value and use it to build for the next wave.
Either way, there’s no clean answer here, and the consequences won’t be clear for years.
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