Royals Sign Elias Díaz To Minor League Deal
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.
Padres Decline Options On Elias Díaz, Tyler Wade, Kyle Hart
The Padres have turned down options on three players, per Annie Heilbrunn of the San Diego Union-Tribune. They have declined a $7MM mutual option for catcher Elias Díaz, going for the $2MM buyout instead. Infielder/outfielder Tyler Wade‘s $1MM club option has been turned down in favor of a $50K buyout. Left-hander Kyle Hart‘s $5MM club option has been turned down in favor of a $500K buyout. All three will head to free agency.
None of the three moves comes as a major shock. The Padres signed Díaz last offseason, a one-year deal with a $3.5MM guarantee for his age-34 campaign. That took the form of a $1.5MM salary and a $2MM buyout on the $7MM mutual option. It’s been over a decade since both sides of a mutual option were exercised. They are usually a way for the team to kick part of the payment down the road. That appears to be the case here, as the option buyout was more than the salary in this case.
Díaz got into 106 games for the Padres, slashing .204/.270/.337 for a 74 wRC+. His defense was considered around par. With Díaz now removed, the Padres are down to two backstops on the roster. Freddy Fermin projects as the top option. Luis Campusano is still there but the club doesn’t appear to trust him behind the plate, as they opted to give playing time to older veterans like Díaz and Martín Maldonado, even though Campusano was crushing in the minors. It wouldn’t be surprising if Campusano were traded, now that he’s out of options, with the Friars circling back to Díaz or some other veteran.
Wade, 31 in November, has long been a glove-first utility guy in the majors. He got into 60 games for the Padres this year and played all the outfield slots as well as the three infield positions to the left of first base. However, he hit just .206/.309/.252.
The Padres signed Hart in February, hoping he could build off a strong year in Korea. Pitching for the KBO’s NC Dinos in 2024, he posted a 2.69 ERA in 157 innings. The Friars brought him back to North America on a one-year deal with a $1.5MM guarantee. That included a $1MM salary this year and a $500K buyout on a $5MM club option.
Unfortunately, his return to the majors didn’t go smoothly. He logged 43 big league innings with a 5.86 earned run average this year. His 20.7% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate were decent but he was mostly used in a low leverage swingman role. The Friars need pitching but they have a tight budget and Hart didn’t perform well, so it’s understandable that they haven’t given him a raise.
Photo courtesy of Denis Poroy, Imagn Images
Padres Select Martin Maldonado
The Padres selected Martín Maldonado back onto the 40-man roster on Tuesday morning. That was required to carry him as the backup catcher for their Wild Card Series against the Cubs. Reliever Jason Adam, who is out for the season with a quad injury, was transferred to the 60-day injured list. Maldonado was in the organization on a minor league deal after being released from the MLB roster in August.
Backup catcher Elias Díaz tweaked his left oblique over the weekend and was evidently unavailable. Luis Campusano was the only other option on the 40-man roster who could back up Freddy Fermin. The Padres are carrying Campusano on the Wild Card series roster as well, but he hasn’t caught a single major league inning all season. Maldonado hasn’t been in the majors since the trade deadline but at least had built something of a rapport with the pitching staff when he and Díaz were the catching duo earlier in the year.
Fermin caught Nick Pivetta in today’s Game 1 loss. Díaz had worked behind the plate as Pivetta’s personal catcher for the entire season and would surely have been the Game 1 starter if healthy. Unless he suffers an injury, Fermin will play tomorrow and what the Padres hope is a necessary Game 3. Dylan Cease starts against a Cubs’ bullpen game tomorrow. San Diego has Yu Darvish lined up if the series goes to a decider. The Cubs have not announced plans for that potential outing.
Maldonado, who hit .204/.245/.327 and hasn’t played a game since July 30, is a contingency plan. The 15-year MLB veteran and 2022 World Series champion appeared in 65 postseason contests with the Astros between 2018-23.
Padres Seeking Upgrades At Catcher
The Padres are hoping to upgrade their offensive production behind the plate as the July 31 trade deadline approaches, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic writes. It’ll likely be a thin market for available catchers, which complicates their search.
San Diego has leaned exclusively on Elias Diaz and Martin Maldonado behind the plate this year and received virtually no production on the offensive side of things. That veteran duo has combined for a feeble .205/.268/.328 batting line in 296 plate appearances. The resulting 70 wRC+, which indicates they’ve been 30% worse than average at the plate, ranks 27th in the majors.
Unfortunately for the Friars, few of the clear sellers around the game have catching help for sale. The White Sox (Kyle Teel, Edgar Quero), Marlins (Agustin Ramirez) and Rockies (Hunter Goodman) all have young catchers enjoying good seasons — and all are controllable at least five years beyond the current campaign. Pittsburgh’s Joey Bart makes some sense on paper, but he hasn’t been able to replicate last year’s breakout. The A’s would make another good speculative fit, but Rosenthal reports that they have no intention of trading Shea Langeliers. He adds that even even with Drake Baldwin ascending in Atlanta, a Sean Murphy trade over the next four weeks isn’t likely.
There are some bubble teams who could eventually have catching depth to spare, but it’s not yet clear whether any of those teams will sell. The Reds only control Tyler Stephenson through the 2026 campaign, and fellow catcher Jose Trevino‘s recent three-year extension (plus a club option) gives them a bit more stability long-term. Similarly, the Twins and Rangers only have Ryan Jeffers and Jonah Heim under club control through 2026, although the latter is having a particularly down season at the plate. If the Orioles wind up selling, old friend Gary Sanchez would be a logical trade chip, as an impending free agent whose bat is heating up in recent weeks.
On top of the likely lack of supply, the Padres will presumably have financial limitations. San Diego was known to be low on spending power late in the offseason, hence the creative structure of Nick Pivetta‘s four-year deal and the bargain-bin additions at catcher (Diaz, Maldonado), in left field (Jason Heyward, Connor Joe, Gavin Sheets) and for the pitching staff (Kyle Hart). The Padres are well into luxury tax territory — an estimated $263MM worth of obligations, per RosterResource, puts them in the second tier of penalty — so any additions would come with an additional 30% tax on top of their remaining annual salary.
The Padres also have needs in the outfield corners — neither Joe nor Heyward is still with the club — and could use some additional rotation help with Michael King on the shelf and Yu Darvish yet to make his season debut. Juggling all those needs, with potentially limited financial flexibility and a farm system that has been thinned by years of aggressive win-now trades, could prove a tall order.
The fact that San Diego is both reported to covet catching help and using Diaz and Maldonado exclusively also speaks to the manner in which former top prospect Luis Campusano has fallen out of favor in the organization. The 26-year-old is hitting .315/.432/.613 in 224 Triple-A plate appearances but hasn’t gotten much of a look in the majors this year. He’s struggled on both sides of the ball in the past, hitting .241/.295/.374 in 589 major league plate appearances while posting sub-par defensive grades. Campusano feels like a change-of-scenery candidate who could be on the move between now and the end of the month.
Padres Re-Sign Elias Díaz
The Padres officially announced that they’ve re-signed catcher Elias Díaz to a one-year deal with a mutual option for the 2026 season. The ACES client is reportedly guaranteed $3.5MM — taking the form of a $1.5MM base salary for the upcoming season and a $2MM buyout on the $7MM option. San Diego had multiple openings on the 40-man roster and didn’t need to make a corresponding move.
Díaz, 34, finished the 2024 season with the Padres. After being released by the Rockies, he landed a minors pact with the Friars and was added to the roster just before the calendar flipped from August to September. He joined Kyle Higashioka and Luis Campusano on the roster, though Campusano would be optioned a little more than a week later. Díaz hit .190/.292/.429 in 24 plate appearances. For the postseason, the Friars carried Higashioka and Díaz on the roster over Campusano, though Higashioka took the bulk of the work as Díaz received only one plate appearance.
Both Díaz and Higashioka became free agents at the end of the season, leaving the Friars with a clear hole behind the plate. Higashioka signed with the Rangers. Campusano, who is still on the roster, seemed to have a breakout season in 2023 when he hit .319/.356/.491, but his line had a steep drop last year, finishing at .227/.281/.361. Since his defensive metrics were also poor, he was considered to be below replacement level on the year.
That made the position a clear target area for the Friars this offseason. However, the club has been remarkably quiet this winter. Once completed, this will be their first free agent signing. Their only trade so far was acquiring right-hander Ron Marinaccio after he was designated for assignment by the White Sox.
That’s surely related to the club’s uncertain payroll situation. The Padres spent aggressively while Peter Seidler was owning the club but it turned out to not be sustainable. In September of 2023, it was reported that the club was “out of compliance with MLB regulations regarding their debt service ratio.” Seidler died in November of that year. The 2023-24 offseason saw the Padres look to cut their payroll, which led to Juan Soto getting traded to the Yankees.
This winter, it once seemed that the club would have to dial back projected spending some more, which led to plenty of rumors involving players like Dylan Cease, Luis Arráez, Michael King, Robert Suarez and others. Reporting in recent days has suggested the situation isn’t quite so dire, with the Friars not necessarily having to cut spending. However, with holes in left field, at catcher, in the rotation and perhaps at shortstop, trading one of those players might still be necessary in order to free up money and then add elsewhere.
Regardless of the specifics, it’s clear that the budget crunch has made president of baseball operations A.J. Preller far less active than in other offseasons. It has also limited the club in addressing their catching situation. They signed Martín Maldonado to a minor league deal and have now made a modest investment with this deal.
Díaz generally gets better marks for his glovework than for his bat. For his career, he has hit .251/.304/.388 for a wRC+ of 78, indicating he’s been 22% below the league average hitter. Catchers generally come in about 10% below the league-wide mean, though Díaz will still come in below that lower bar. Between the Rockies and Padres last year, he hit .265/.313/.382 for a wRC+ of 81.
Behind the plate, outlets like FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus and Statcast have generally ranked him as a poor framer but close to average in terms of blocking and strong when it comes to controlling the running game.
Díaz and Campusano now project as the club’s catching duo. Campusano still has an option and could be pushed to Triple-A, though the only other backstop on the 40-man roster is Brett Sullivan, who is about to turn 31 years old and has a .206/.243/.299 line in just 103 big league appearances.
Ideally, Campusano would regain his 2023 form and run with the job. He has less than three years of service time and therefore has the potential to be a cheap solution for his four remaining years of club control. But if he can’t rebound from his rough 2024, the Padres now at least have a competent veteran on-hand. Maldonado also gives them some seasoned non-roster depth and it’s also possible the club makes further moves to address the catching situation.
RosterResource now projects the Friars for a competitive balance tax number of $245MM. That’s just a bit above this year’s $241MM base threshold, though as mentioned, it’s possible that they change their financial situation via trades of players making notable salaries.
Daniel Álvarez-Montes of El Extrabase first reported that Díaz had agreed to a one-year deal that guaranteed $3.5MM and included a mutual option. Álvarez-Montes also reported the specific salary breakdown and the option value.
Orioles To Pursue Catching Help This Winter
5:03PM: The Orioles have interest in Elias Diaz, MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko reports. An All-Star in 2023 due to a hot start to the season, Diaz has been a below-average offensive performer for most of his 10 MLB seasons, but his defensive metrics have been generally solid. Diaz hit .265/.313/.382 over 351 plate appearances with the Rockies and Padres last season, as Diaz landed with San Diego in August after being released by Colorado.
1:34PM: Much of the conversation surrounding the Orioles to this point in the offseason has focused on recently-departed free agents Corbin Burnes and Anthony Santander and the club’s efforts to either reunite with or replace those top-of-the-market players. In an appearance on MLB Network Radio earlier today, club GM Mike Elias acknowledged that the club would “love” to bring both Burnes and Santander back, and that they’re prioritizing additions to the top of the rotation and the outfield to make up for that lost production. While those plans have already been reported on extensively, Elias also noted one other departing free agent who the club would either like to reunite with or replace this winter: veteran catcher James McCann.
McCann, 34, spent the past two seasons in Baltimore after being traded to the Orioles by the Mets prior to the 2023 season. He settled comfortably into the backup catcher role with his new club, serving as the second half of a tandem alongside young star Adley Rutschman. During his time in Baltimore, Statcast rated McCann as a below-average defensive catcher overall, with average marks (0 CS Above Average) for throwing out runners but lackluster marks in terms of blocking (-12 Blocks Above Average) and pitch framing (-5 Framing Runs). Meanwhile, McCann has been a below average hitter overall with the bat, but that still made him a roughly average offensive backup catcher overall as he hit .228/.274/.382 (83 wRC+) in 459 total trips to the plate over the past two years, including an 89 wRC+ in 2024.
While that production shouldn’t be especially difficult to replace for the Orioles, it’s nonetheless worth noting that the club plans to pursue an external addition at the position. With Rutschman locked in as the club’s starting catcher for the foreseeable future and top prospect Samuel Basallo already at the Triple-A level, it wouldn’t have been especially surprising if the club decided to go with some combination of Blake Hunt and Rene Pinto to back up Rutschman until Basallo is ready to debut. Given Elias’s comments, however, it seems the club will at least explore adding another veteran catcher to the mix to pair with Rutschman.
Whether that veteran catcher will wind up being McCann or not is unclear. Rich Dubroff of Baltimore Baseball suggested earlier today that McCann may be searching for a multi-year deal in free agency this winter given the thin market for catchers, and went on to note that a deal of that magnitude could make the Orioles “uncomfortable.” Given the presence of Basallo, it would be understandable if the club preferred to limit any commitment to a veteran catcher to just one guaranteed year. If McCann proves to be out of the club’s comfort zone or they simply opt to go in a different direction, there’s a number of other options who could be available on a one-year pact this winter such as Gary Sanchez, Elias Diaz, and Reese McGuire.
Padres To Select Elias Diaz
The Padres are set to select the contract of catcher Elias Diaz tomorrow, according to a report from Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Acee writes that Diaz will take the active roster spot created for a position player by tomorrow’s roster expansion, while left-hander Wandy Peralta will be activated from the 15-day Injured List to take the spot created for a pitcher. Lefty Tom Cosgrove will also be recalled from the minor leagues, though a corresponding move will be necessary to add him to the active roster. A corresponding move to make room on the 40-man roster will be necessary to accommodate Diaz.
Diaz, 33, joined the Padres on a minor league deal earlier this week after being released by the Rockies earlier this month. That release brought to an end a five-season stretch in Colorado that saw Diaz slash a solid .253/.305/.403 in 462 games with the club. That slash line was good for a wRC+ of just 80 due to the inflated offensive environment at Coors Field, but even that diminished figure is still well within the acceptable range for a glove-first catcher. Diaz proved to be a solid if unspectacular regular for the club behind the plate, even earning an All-Star appearance last year.
After a solid start to the 2024 campaign, the Rockies reportedly entertained trade offers for Diaz’s services, but the club’s plans to deal the veteran in his final year before free agency were thrown off course when he suffered a calf strain that caused him to miss three weeks in June. After returning, Diaz’s offense took a nosedive with a .194/.239/.239 slash line in 18 games in the run-up to the deadline. That seemingly scared off suitors to the point where the Rockies weren’t able to get a deal done, and it left them to try placing Diaz on waivers in mid-August in an attempt to find a suitor willing to absorb what remained of his salary. His offensive production had only improved marginally when the calendar flipped to August, however, and the club eventually released Diaz to allow him the opportunity to try and catch on with a contender elsewhere.
He’s now done just that with the Padres, and will have the opportunity to share catching duties with the club’s existing tandem of Luis Campusano and Kyle Higashioka down the stretch. Higashioka is in the midst of a career year at the plate with an excellent .230/.276/.520 slash line and 16 homers in just 215 trips to the plate, while Campusano has endured a bit of a down season with a slash line of just .233/.283/.372 in 87 games. Diaz should offer the club a solid defensive option behind the plate who, if he can regain his early season form, could offer an on-base ability that both of their current catchers lack.
As for Peralta, the veteran lefty has pitched to somewhat middling results in the first year of a complex four-year deal he signed with the Padres this winter. In 34 innings, the 32-year-old hurler has posted a 4.50 ERA despite a 5.70 FIP and a strikeout rate of just 13.6%. He’ll join fellow lefties Tanner Scott, Yuki Matsui, and Adrian Morejon in the club’s bullpen down the stretch, where the club will surely hope for Peralta to recapture the form that allowed him to post a 3.01 ERA in 200 appearances with the Giants and Yankees over the past four seasons.
Padres, Elias Diaz Agree To Minor League Deal
The Padres are signing catcher Elias Díaz to a minor league contract, tweets Daniel Álvarez-Montes of El Extrabase. Venezuelan reporter Rafael Petit was first to report (on X) that Díaz and the Padres had come to an agreement.
Díaz has been a free agent since he was released by the Rockies on August 16. He reportedly declined to pursue an opportunity with the Giants because San Francisco wasn’t willing to guarantee he’d remain on the MLB roster after starter Patrick Bailey returned from injury. Díaz won’t immediately jump onto the big league club with San Diego, though a minor league deal now is arguably preferable to a brief major league stint in San Francisco with the possibility of being released in September.
The timing of the signing makes no financial difference for the veteran catcher. Díaz is still guaranteed the entirety of his $6MM salary from Colorado. If San Diego calls him up at any point, they’d pay him the prorated $740K league minimum (which would drop off the Rockies’ books). Díaz has more than six years of MLB service and will return to free agency at the end of the season regardless. His primary goal with this deal is finding a potential path to a playoff roster.
San Diego is eight games ahead of the Giants in the standings, so they’re obviously much more likely to make the postseason. A player only needs to be in an organization — not on the 40-man roster — by the start of September to be eligible for the playoffs. MLB can and frequently does grant permission for players on minor league deals to participate in the postseason as substitutes for injured players. Díaz would be eligible for postseason play with the Friars even if they don’t add him to the MLB roster within the next five days. Had he signed with San Francisco and been released in early September as the corresponding move for Bailey’s return, that would’ve officially precluded him from participating in the postseason.
The Padres have three catchers on the 40-man roster: Luis Campusano, Kyle Higashioka and Brett Sullivan. Aside from Campusano’s two-week injured list stint shortly before the All-Star Break, he and Higashioka have handled the catching work. Higashioka came over from the Yankees as an ancillary piece in the Juan Soto return. The Padres expected him to back up Campusano, but he has actually been the far more productive player. Higashioka has drilled a career-high 15 home runs in 204 plate appearances. While he’s not getting on base consistently, the power and steady defensive work have made him one of the more productive backup catchers in the league.
Campusano, by contrast, has a subpar .231/.274/.373 batting line and well below-average marks for his glovework. He still has an option remaining, so the Padres could send him down without putting him on waivers. It’s also possible they carry three catchers once active rosters expand to 28 in September.
Díaz was hitting .270/.315/.378 through 327 plate appearances before Colorado released him to get their first look at prospect Drew Romo. Much of that production was driven by an elevated batting average on balls in play at Coors Field. Díaz has solid contact skills and hit 14 homers as recently as last season (not including the All-Star Game homer that earned him the game’s MVP honors). He does a strong job controlling the running game and has improved his pitch framing grades this year.
Giants Sign Andrew Knapp To Major League Deal
The Giants signed catcher Andrew Knapp to a major league contract. Andrew Baggarly of the Athletic first observed (on X) that the switch-hitting backstop was in tonight’s starting lineup. San Francisco designated Jakson Reetz for assignment to create a 40-man opening. Knapp, an Apex Baseball client, reaches the majors for the first time this season.
Knapp had been in Triple-A with the Rangers. He signed an offseason minor league deal, opted out at the start of July, then returned to Texas on a new non-roster pact around the All-Star Break. The Rangers granted him his release yesterday, presumably in tandem with his agreement with San Francisco. He didn’t get a look in Texas despite a strong .294/.383/.457 slash in 345 Triple-A plate appearances.
While the Rangers haven’t gotten much production out of the catching position, Jonah Heim was an All-Star last season. Texas moved on from struggling backup Andrew Knizner when they acquired Carson Kelly at the deadline. Barring injury, Knapp probably wasn’t going to get a look there. The Giants had more room for a short-term option after losing Patrick Bailey to the injured list this week. Bailey is battling what seems to be a low-severity oblique strain.
Knapp, 32, played in three games for the Giants two seasons ago. That marked his most recent MLB action. He has spent the past couple seasons bouncing around the Triple-A level. A Berkeley product and former second-round pick by the Phillies, Knapp is a career .209/.310/.313 hitter in 873 big league plate appearances. He’ll back up Curt Casali for the time being.
It’s possible his stay on the roster will be brief. Bailey could return right around when he’s first eligible on August 29. That’d give San Francisco three catchers and presumably force them to choose between retaining Casali or Knapp as the backup.
Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported earlier in the week that the Giants had some interest in former All-Star Elias Díaz, whom the Rockies released a week ago. Bailey’s presumed forthcoming return apparently took that off the table. Slusser wrote this afternoon that Díaz declined to pursue the opportunity when the Giants indicated they couldn’t commit to keeping him on the roster beyond Bailey’s return date.
That’s understandable on Díaz’s part. The Rockies are on the hook for his $6MM salary while he’s a free agent. He’d need to be in an organization by September 1 to be eligible for postseason play. If he signed with the Giants for a week and was released as the corresponding move for a Bailey reinstatement on August 29, he’d have very little time to find another landing spot that could allow him to play in October. A short-term stint is much more appealing for Knapp, who had been on a minor league salary with Texas and has ties to the Bay Area.
San Francisco designates Reetz for the second time this season. He has appeared in six MLB games for them this year and played in two games with the 2021 Nationals. The former third-round pick has hit .254/.368/.431 over 58 games with Triple-A Sacramento. He’ll go on waivers in the next few days and would be able to elect free agency if he goes unclaimed.
Giants Among Teams Interested In Elias Diaz
The Rockies cut catcher Elias Diaz loose earlier this week after he went unclaimed on waivers, and Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Giants are among the teams with some interest now that Diaz is a free agent who could be signed for the prorated league minimum. (San Francisco also had some interest in Diaz prior to the trade deadline, per Slusser.) So long as Diaz signs on or before Aug. 31, he’d be eligible for his new club’s postseason roster.
The Giants just placed Patrick Bailey on the injured list yesterday with an oblique strain, severely compromising the team’s catching depth. San Francisco called up journeyman Jakson Reetz in a corresponding move to Bailey’s IL placement, and they’ll use Reetz as their No. 2 catcher behind backup-turned-starter Curt Casali, at least for now. Casali, 35, was a midseason signing himself and has only produced a .205/.318/.233 batting line in 86 plate appearances. The 28-year-old Reetz is just 2-for-16 in 17 MLB plate appearances and was batting .254/.368/.431 (102 wRC+) in a hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League setting prior to his recall to the big leagues.
Diaz would represent an upgrade over that tandem in virtually every capacity. While it’d be a stretch to call him even an average offensive contributor, given his lackluster power output and perennially middling on-base percentages, Diaz has solid contact skills and can typically hit for a fairly empty batting average at the very least. He batted .270/.315/.378 this year in Colorado (80 wRC+) and carries a .251/.304/.388 slash in 2010 plate appearances dating back to the 2019 season.
Defensively, Diaz has typically drawn good grades for his ability to block pitches in the dirt, and he’s regularly posted average or better numbers in terms of caught-stealing rate. He’s frequently been panned for poor pitch-framing skills, but he’s delivered a career-best performance in that regard this season and been credited with plus overall glovework as a result (5 Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average alike).
Even with those defensive improvements, Diaz can’t hold a candle to the injured Bailey’s glovework — although that’s true of virtually every defender in the sport. The 25-year-old Bailey has quickly emerged as the sport’s premier defensive catcher — and one of its premier defenders at any position — drawing the best framing marks of anyone in MLB and thwarting a hefty 30% of stolen-base attempts against him since his big league debut. Drilling down further, Bailey is the best in the sport in Statcast’s “caught stealing above average” metric, which contextualizes stolen base attempts based on who’s running, who’s on the mound and what type of jump the runner gets — rather than treating them all as equal. (Throwing out Elly De La Cruz when he has an outstanding jump, after all, is far more difficult than throwing out Hunter Renfroe on the back end of a double-steal attempt.)
After a strong start to the season with the bat, Bailey’s offense has tanked in the past six weeks or so, leaving him with a .233/.299/.344 slash on the season. That might make Diaz look like an upgrade offensively at the very least, but it should be pointed out that Diaz himself has floundered in the batter’s box of late as well. A calf strain cost Diaz three weeks in June, and in the time between his return and his eventual DFA, he hit only .208/.243/.264 in 111 plate appearances.
That said, Diaz has a track record of putting the ball in play and delivering offense that, while below that of a league-average bat, is generally solid relative to fellow catchers (who tend to be below-average hitters on the whole, in large part given the physical demands of the position). And given the in-house alternatives with Bailey on the shelf, it’s fairly logical that the Giants would have interest in placing a bet on that track record as they look to stay afloat in a tightly contested chase for the final Wild Card spot in the National League. The Braves currently hold that third Wild Card spot, but they’re only 2.5 games up on the Mets and 3.5 games ahead of the Giants.