The Phillies were ‘very close’ to getting Bo Bichette and ended up with J.T. Realmuto. Here’s how it happened.

Late Thursday, within the hallways of One Citizens Bank Way, Phillies officials believed they were close to signing Bo Bichette.

How close?

“We were very close to having a deal done,” president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said Tuesday without divulging details. “We thought it was going to happen.”

Bichette, through his agent, informed the Phillies that he would sign if they met his seven-year, $200 million asking price, two major league sources confirmed. The team agreed. All that was left, according to a source with knowledge of the situation, was “crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s” on the Phillies’ offer to the star infielder.

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That process was underway Friday when Bichette changed course, agreeing shortly before noon to a shorter-term (three years), higher-salary ($42 million per year) contract with two opt-outs from the Mets, who lost in their attempt to sign free-agent outfielder Kyle Tucker.

Most Phillies officials found out about it like the public did — through reports in the media.

“It’s a gut punch,” Dombrowski said. “I mean, you feel it.”

Bichette didn’t give the Phillies the chance to outbid New York. Even so, they wouldn’t have sprung for the fourth-highest annual salary in the sport or included opt-out provisions.

And that’s how the Phillies and J.T. Realmuto found their way back to each other.

OK, so it lacks the romance of other free-agent courtships. And it made for a potentially awkward news conference Tuesday to announce the catcher’s new three-year, $45 million contract.

Because the Phillies “almost certainly” were going to sign Bichette or Realmuto, not both, a major league source said. And if things had gone as they anticipated Thursday night, their longtime iron-man catcher would be meeting the media from a different city this week.

Yet here were Realmuto and Dombrowski, narrowly spared from divorce, trying to avoid sounding like staying together was more than a consolation prize for either side.

“Things got a little hairy there at the end, but I’m glad we’re back here,” Realmuto said. “This is where we wanted to be the whole time.”

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Said Dombrowski: “We always wanted to bring J.T. back. That was always a priority for us. They knew it. We also knew that he wanted to come back. Just there was a disagreement as far as dollars were concerned.”

Indeed, Realmuto made a catcher-record $23.1 million per year since 2021. At age 35, amid a three-year decline at the plate, he conceded he would have to take a pay cut.

But Realmuto also believed a team should pay a premium for his strengths behind the plate, notably game-calling and handling a pitching staff, among the last intangibles that can’t be measured by metrics. The Phillies appreciate his skills in those areas, but valued it differently.

“We couldn’t bridge that gap,” Dombrowski said.

It led the Phillies to Bichette, with whom they met over a Zoom call on Jan. 12. The positional fit didn’t seem obvious earlier in the offseason. Bichette has only ever played shortstop. But as talks with Realmuto stalled, the Phillies began thinking about improving the roster in other ways.

The Phillies would have played Bichette at third base and displaced Alec Bohm, who likely would’ve been traded. And Bichette was open to switching positions. The Zoom meeting went well enough that Dombrowski called Realmuto’s agent to inform him the Phillies might be going in another direction. Things began to get more serious.

Or did they? Given how it all turned out, did Bichette use the Phillies as a stalking horse to get the deal he wanted from the Mets?

“I can’t [say that] because you never know 100% what’s going on from their perspective,” Dombrowski said. “I do think he was sincere about thinking about coming to Philadelphia. Yes, I do. I think he was. We were at the numbers that they really asked us to match. [The Mets] jumped in at the last minute and made him a short-term offer that was very appealing to him.”

Some within the Phillies’ front office were furious. But Dombrowski said Bichette’s camp didn’t renege on a deal or negotiate out of bounds because the sides never reached the point of signing a “memo of understanding,” a document that would have preceded a completed deal.

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“It wasn’t that we weren’t moving toward that direction,” Dombrowski said. “I did think that we were going to get there based upon our conversations. But we did not get to that point, so I can’t say that I ever thought we had it done.”

The Phillies thought their willingness to stretch the term of the contract to seven years with more guaranteed money would be an advantage over the Mets (or potentially the Dodgers if they hadn’t signed Tucker). It’s a tactic they used to help land other marquee free agents: Bryce Harper (13 years), Trea Turner (11 years), and Aaron Nola (seven years).

Instead, the Phillies missed out on a coveted free agent, a rarity since they signed Harper in 2019. They pivoted back to Realmuto within an hour of Bichette’s agreement with the Mets — “It was very quickly,” Dombrowski said — and bumped up their offer. They aren’t considering a run at any other big-ticket free agents, including Cody Bellinger.

They might actually be better off with Realmuto at the controls of the pitching staff than with Bichette’s right-handed bat in the lineup. Pitching, after all, remains the strength of the roster, and Zack Wheeler, Cristopher Sánchez, and others swear by Realmuto’s guidance.

Still, four days after Bichette slipped through the Phillies’ fingers, it was impossible to not hear the disappointment in Dombrowski’s voice.

“That day you are very … upset, I guess is the way to say it,” he said. “But you have to pick yourself up and shake it off. Because you can’t just wallow in what took place. So, after a day of feeling that way, or a time period, you need to move forward. That’s how you handle it.

“We did rebound in the sense that we signed J.T. right away. We’re very fortunate he didn’t sign somewhere else.”

In time, maybe it will start to feel more like it.