Reds Beat: Tyler Stephenson Is Now The Man Behind The Plate After Losing ‘Part of My Identity’ in 2023

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Forget the days of moving Tyler Stephenson from behind the plate.

The 27-year-old is ready to assume the regular catching duties for the Cincinnati staff.

Last year, Stephenson caught a career-high 92 games, overcoming a cracked collarbone, concussion and broken thumb in a nightmarish 2022. It was after that injury that speculation heated up that it was time to consider moving Stephenson from behind the plate and perhaps to first base or DH.

After all, Stephenson was batting .319 with an .854 OPS, six home runs and 35 RBIs at the time of the injury. He wound up playing just 50 games that season. In 2021, Stephenson batted .286 with 10 homers.

“The million dollar question,” Stephenson said after suffering the season-ending fractured clavicle against the Cardinals. “I grew up a catcher. I’ve been catching my whole life. I want to stick around behind the plate, obviously, as much as possible. It’s something that I enjoy and I love calling myself a catcher because not many people can call themselves that, especially a big league catcher.”

While Stephenson set a new personal best calling games, his offense fell off in 2023, slashing a career-low .243/.317/.378 with 13 homers and 56 RBIs in 143 games.

“With the last year there was a lot of exploring with the DH and catching and first base,” Stephenson told me after Sunday’s workout. “And it’s not like I’m opposed to doing that at times, but I definitely felt like last year I’d lost like a part of my identity. With catching, I classify myself as that and that’s something that I want to be labeled as.”

And this offseason has been all about getting his bearings back on catching.

“It was good, especially from last year, going into an offseason being fully healthy, like not even having to worry about the rehab anymore with the collarbone. So it was a really good offseason just kind of knowing like, ‘Hey, the things that I really need to improve on and I know that there’s some areas that I do need to move on.’ So that was kind of the big main focus offseason.”

That means working on receiving, throwing, blocking and getting to know his pitchers better.

“It’s obviously knowing the guys,” Stephenson said. “You’ve got to figure out all their pros or cons, what they’re good at, and obviously turning that into a plan to obviously attack hitters. So like, obviously in camp for the most part, we’ve got a bunch of the guys that are coming back, which is great. But obviously there’s a bunch of new guys so it’s having the conversations with them like the experience of ‘Hey, this is what I do normally to righties and lefties.’ So it’s a bunch of conversations that I feel like are never ending, but it’s important, very important.”

The biggest vote of confidence Sunday for Stephenson as catcher came from the man in charge of the pitching staff.

“I think when guys are in the spotlight for as long as he’s been, coming up through and being sort of our catching hope for the future, it takes a while for these guys to feel normal and to feel comfortable and what they’re doing,” pitching coach Derek Johnson said. “The catching position certainly is one of the hardest, especially because you’ve got 33 (pitchers) in camp right now and you’ve got to try to figure out every single one of them and I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember 33 things at one time, let alone like all the pitches that they throw.

“So these guys are asked to take on a lot of information and I think maybe, if nothing else, what we’re seeing is Tyler’s in a place now where he’s accustomed to it. He knows kind of what his role as he knows what he needs to do and he feels fine about that and I agree. I think he’s just really comfortable right now. We’ll see when the games start. We’ll see, but so far so good.”

Stephenson told me Sunday that perhaps it’s just a matter of experience, and finally being ready to handle the staff over a full season, something the 2023 season finally provided him.

“That’s something that I really want to take a lot of pride in this year and I’ve just tried to spend as much time as possible learning,” Stephenson said. “I’m not the young rookie kind of behind behind closed doors trying to learn things learn thing. We’re still always learning so I don’t want to say it’s a comfort thing, but it’s a lot of learning.

“It’s a lot of conversations and time with DJ and I was fortunate to learn from Tucker (Barnhart) when I first came up and to be alongside Curt (Casali) and Luke (Maile) last year and Luke again. These are guys that have a lot of endings a lot of games, a lot of experience. So once again, I feel like the conversations in this game are never ending because we’re always trying to learn and improve.”

Some observations from Sunday in the desert:

Injury updates:

Luke Maile, not wearing a protective pad on his left elbow, took a fastball from Casey Legumina off that elbow during live batting practice and had his day ended early. He headed to the clubhouse but didn’t appear to be in serious discomfort. Clearly, with swelling and soreness a possibility on the eve of the first day of full squad practices, his situation is one worth monitoring. On the positive side, Emilio Pagan returned to bullpen sessions on Sunday. Pagan had sports hernia surgery in the offseason and was slowly working his way back into full participation. He is expected to miss the first week of Cactus League games. Keep an eye on Noelvi Marte during full-squad workouts, who is returning from a hamstring injury suffered during winter ball. He is also expected to miss the first week of Cactus League games but the issue is not considered serious.

Rhett Lowder and Chase Petty show off stuff:

First-round pick Rhett Lowder and top pitching prospect Chase Petty threw live batting practice Sunday. Lowder was especially overpowering, showing tremendous command of his changeup, fastball and slider against right-handed hitting Tyler Stephenson and lefty catcher Michael Trautwein.

“Really good,” Stephenson said of Lowder. “I was really impressed. Obviously, I knew he was our first pick last year. I think this was his first time like really throwing because I think he was shut down last year after he was drafted because the College World Series and had a bunch of innings. So I caught one of his bullpens and it looks really good in that. It was even better when I was in there today.

“Really good command and sink on his fastball and really good change up that plays really well off of that. He’s special. I was just telling (teammates) that (Chase) Petty and Lowder are very similar in terms of like stuff, with the sinker, the change up and the slider. Lowder looks really good, and I’m excited to see him progress with us.”

A vote for Tejay:

Pitching coach Derek Johnson said Sunday that if righty reliever Tejay Antone, with a pair of Tommy John surgeries in his past, is healthy, he’ll be an active and significant part of the Reds pen.

“If Tejay is healthy, Tejay’ll pitch,” Johnson said. “I mean, he’s proven every single time he’s been in the big leagues, he’s been effective, if not elite in some cases. So for us, it’s like if we can get Tejay to stay healthy all the way through this thing, he’s going to be a big part of our club and to me it’s really as simple as that.”