Royals latest signing adds obvious candidate to race for vacant third catcher’s role

Arguably the most unheralded need for the Kansas City Royals this winter was addressing their third catcher’s role, made vacant after Luke Maile hit the free agent market at season’s end.

Considering the role isn’t a flashy one by any means, given the consistent presence of captain Salvador Perez and the emergence of top prospect Carter Jensen, the Royals didn’t need to go out and acquire some ground-breaking name.

However, with Salvy’s age and more regular appearances at first base and DH, as well as Jensen’s lack of experience in the big league’s, the need for someone to come in occasionally or in an emergency situation made a third catcher necessary once again this season.

While the Royals already added a name on minor league deal earlier this winter in Jorge Alfaro, and have other names kicking around in the minors such as Luca Tresh, there certainly seemed to be room for more competition heading into spring training later this month.

So, what better name to add than the guy that most recently held this role who happened to still be available.

That’s precisely what the Royals did on Thursday, announcing that they’d brought back Maile on a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training.

Royals re-unite with Luke Maile on minor league contract with invitation to spring training

As the saying goes; “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and that’s precisely the argument to be made with Maile.

The soon-to-be 35-year-old major league journeyman wasn’t anything incredible for the Royals last season, but did the job he was required to do when called upon.

In 54 plate appearances across 24 games last season, Maile crafted a near-average season at the plate, sporting a 99 wRC+. He hit .244 with a .702 OPS and managed to walk at a 13.0% margin.

And there’s a lot to be said about having someone occupy a position like this who can comfortably work with a pitching staff behind the plate. Given his decade of experience in the majors, he’s obviously comfortable calling a game and he knows his way around a strike-zone, sporting an above-average framing rate of 2 in 2025. On top of that, the old-man still has it in terms of pop-time, posting a strong 1.92 second mark last year.

Obviously, on a minors deal, there’s no guaranteeing that Maile lands the third catcher’s job in 2026. He’ll need to perform in spring training to do so.

However, even if they opt to go in another direction, perhaps given his prior willingness to play in Triple-A last season, he’d be a depth option to stash in Omaha and call upon if needed.

All in all, to bring back a familiar name coming off a solid MLB season on a deal that poses essentially zero risk for the team seemed like a no-brainer decision to make.