After an 11-game stint last year, Realmuto earned his first significant major league playing time with the Marlins and hit .259/.290/.406 in 126 plate appearances. Realmuto has posted a professional OBP above .350 just once and shouldn’t be expected to be an on-base machine — he walked just 4.1 percent of the time. But he makes contact at about a league average rate (15 percent strikeout rate) and showed plus power even with the cavernous walls of Marlins Park keeping him down. Realmuto managed 10 home runs and a shocking seven triples. The last catcher to muster seven triples was Darrell Porter in 1979, and it has happened just five times since 1970. Realmuto also stole eight bases and has attained double-digit stolen base totals in the minors, making him the rare speedster to play the catcher position. With full-time duty next year, he could put up a 10-10 season.

Since being drafted in the third round of the 2010 draft, Realmuto has progressed steadily through the Marlins' system. He struggled in his first taste of Double-A in 2013, batting .239/.310/.353 over 106 games before improving to a .299/.369/.461 line last season over 97 minor league contests. The strong season earned Realmuto a brief stretch in the majors in mid-June and a handful of September games as well, highlighted by a 3-for-5 effort with a double and a triple during the final week of the season. The 23-year-old backstop stands 6-foot-1 and offers a steady line-drive stroke with a strong contact rate (13.9 K% in the 2014 at Double-A) and patient approach at the dish. Realmuto also offers plus defense behind the plate, gunning down 22-of-58 would-be base stealers last season between the majors and the minors. Jarrod Saltalamacchia remains the Marlins’ primary option behind the dish, so Realmuto is most likely headed to Triple-A to further develop his craft and play every day. He could, however, push veteran Jeff Mathis for at-bats down the line and remains locked in among the team’s top prospects as the heir apparent behind the dish.

While Kyle Skipworth's prospect status is fading fast, Realmuto, a converted shortstop, did enough last season to inherit the Marlins' Catcher of the Future tag. He's still raw behind the plate, but the arm that could have made him a highly recruited quarterback is already gunning down basestealers at a nice clip, and his bat showed signs of progress as well at Low-A (12 homers and 13 steals from a kid spending most of his free time doing catching drills isn't bad at all). While Buster Posey comps are inevitable and misguided given the position switch, he is smart and athletic enough to develop into a solid major league backstop down the road if Miami is patient with him, or maybe switch the misguided comps from Posey to Craig Biggio if his new position doesn't take. He's still a few years from the majors, but Realmuto's athleticism and skill set make him an intriguing prospect at fantasy's thinnest spot.