The Royals have signed catcher Elias Díaz to a minor league contract, per a club announcement. The ACES client is expected to report to major league camp next week, the team added.
The 35-year-old Díaz is a veteran of 11 big league seasons split between the Pirates, Rockies and Padres. He’s a career .247/.300/.383 hitter in exactly 2800 plate appearances but batted just .204/.270/.337 (74 wRC+) in 283 plate appearances with the Padres in 2025.
Despite his struggles on a rate basis, Díaz still popped nine homers last year. He’s logged three double-digit homer totals in his big league career, including a career-best 18 round-trippers in 371 plate appearances with the 2021 Rockies, for whom he slashed .246/.310/.464.
From a defensive perspective, Díaz has long drawn average or better marks for his ability to block balls in the dirt and for his throwing. He sports a hearty 26.8% caught-stealing rate in his career, and last year’s 24% mark was effectively right in line with the 23.8% league average. His framing grades drew anywhere from poor to bottom-of-the-scale marks earlier in his career, but he’s made significant strides over the past couple years, with Statcast now crediting him as slightly above average in both 2024 and 2025.
The Royals don’t have an immediate, pressing need behind the plate. Franchise icon Salvador Perez, of course, is still in the fold. He’ll spend some time at DH and first base, but top prospect Carter Jensen is likely to get the nod behind the dish on days when Perez isn’t back there. The 2021 third-round pick made his big league debut in 2025 after hitting .290/.377/.501 between Double-A and Triple-A, and he didn’t miss a beat in the big leagues; Jensen appeared in 20 MLB games (69 plate appearances) and slashed .300/.391/.550 with three homers.
Díaz is the third veteran catcher to sign a minor league deal/non-roster invite with the Royals, joining Luke Maile and Jorge Alfaro in that regard. However, Anne Rogers of MLB.com reported last week that Maile was removed from the camp roster so he could tend to a personal matter. Kansas City remains open to welcoming him back, but that ball seems to be in Maile’s court.
Remember Elio’s French bread pizza?
Why Dana Brown couldn’t you get him on a minor league deal. Failure.
I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.
By the end of spring training Diaz, Luke Maile, Reese McGuire, Mitch Garver, Tomas Nido, Austin Barnes, Ben Rortvedt, Matt Thaiss, and probably a few others may be made available again. Christian Vazquez is still out there and probably could be had for cheap at this point
Given how weak Perez is as a defender, he should be 1B/DH only at this point in his career. The depth behind Carter Jensen is very, very poor. I would have gone with Mitch Garver to be the backup and start vs LHP and given him a major league deal.
What are you even going on about? 3 of our top 10 prospects are catchers. No veteran depth but we have Salvy and a budding ROY candidate in Jensen so not sure we need a grizzled 32 year old backstop wasting a roster spot. We just traded away Fermin so I’d say the organization disagrees with you
Uh, I’m talking about 2026. Blake Mitchell & Ramon Ramirez are nowhere near big-league ready. The backup catcher options are Luke Maile & Elias Diaz, who are both pretty dreadful.
Also, Carter Jensen is a weak hitter against LHP. So, your options against LHP is playing Salvy at C and sacrificing on defense, or getting a lefty masher as your backup catcher like Mitch Garver and keeping Perez at 1B or DH.
Jensen and Salvy will be more than fine. Which is obviously what the organization has decided. Fermin was a not a great hitter so I’m expecting Jensen will be much better. And I’m not sure how Garver would be an answer to anything. He’s 35 and hasn’t hit in 3 years
wRC+ Projections vs LHP:
Garver – 110
Jensen – 87
Maile – 85
Diaz – 84
Over the past three seasons, Garver has a 128 wRC+ against LHP. The team has a hole against LHP at catcher. You can put Salvy back there but you are giving up so much on defense.
Great well good luck to Garver on his minor league deal with Seattle. You’re asking a franchise cornerstone to step aside which is not something they’re going to do in favor of a negative WAR player. They’re not worried about Salvy and prudent or not we just gave him 25 million and extended him so he will be out there.
Salvy should retire the glove and DH. Let Pasquantino handle First Base and Jensen behind the plate
Salvy actually was considered decent at 1b, particularly given his relative lack of experience there. My guess is he catches somewhere around 80 games this year then gets more phased out of catching in 2027.
Perez is a five-time American League Gold Glove Award winner (2013–2016, 2018), consistently recognized as one of the premier defensive backstops during his prime.
Traditional Excellence: He maintained a near-perfect 1.000 fielding percentage at catcher through 92 games in 2025.
Elite Arm: Perez continues to excel at suppressing the run game, posting a 43.8% caught stealing rate (CS%) in 2025, which significantly outperformed the league average.
That said I agree he needs give Jenson half of the load this season.