{"id":488011,"date":"2026-02-20T16:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488011\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T16:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:39:08","slug":"royals-sign-all-star-catcher-with-11-mlb-seasons-to-help-salvador-perez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488011\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals sign All-Star catcher with 11 MLB seasons to help Salvador Perez"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Salvador Perez still plays a lot as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/kansas-city-royals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kansas City Royals<\/a>&#8216; star catcher.<\/p>\n<p>Having depth behind the plate is a good thing, though, and the Royals added some on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The Royals announced that they signed catcher Elias Diaz to a minor league contract.<\/p>\n<p>Diaz, 35, has played in 11 MLB seasons.<\/p>\n<p>The native of Venezuela began his career with parts of five seasons with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/pittsburgh-pirates\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a>. He then spent five seasons with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/colorado-rockies\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Colorado Rockies<\/a>. The past season-plus has been played for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/san-diego-padres\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">San Diego Padres<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Diaz is a career .247 hitter with 71 home runs and a .683 OPS.<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/pittsburgh-pirates\/news\/theres-one-question-pirates-phenom-konnor-griffin-needs-answer\/e52ced688826dcf440f9eae9\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">There&#8217;s one question Pirates phenom Konnor Griffin needs to answer<\/a><\/p>\n<p>His best season was 2023, when he was an All Star (and actually won All-Star Game MVP). Diaz batted .267 with 14 home runs in 141 games that season.<\/p>\n<p>He also hit 18 homers in just 106 games in 2021 for the Rockies.<\/p>\n<p>In 2025 with the Padres, Diaz played in 106 games, hit nine home runs and batted .204.<\/p>\n<p>Behind the 35-year old Perez, the Royals currently just have one other catcher on the 40-man roster, the promising prospect Carter Jensen.<\/p>\n<p>Diaz adds a different dimension if Kansas City wants to let Jensen develop further in the minor leagues.<\/p>\n<p>The Royals have also brought in Luke Maile and Jorge Alfaro as veteran catching possibilities behind Perez, with it seeming likely one of them may stick around for Opening Day and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Salvador Perez still plays a lot as the Kansas City Royals&#8216; star catcher. Having depth behind the plate&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-488011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}