The Royals announced that they have brought back catcher Luke Maile via a minor league deal. The Meister Sports Management client also receives an invite to big league camp in spring training.
It’s a nice birthday present for Maile, who turns 35 years old today. The journeyman catcher has been a big leaguer for over a decade now, having made his debut back in 2015. He was with the Royals in 2025, bouncing on and off the roster throughout the year. He got into 25 games, stepped to the plate 54 times and hit .244/.346/.356.
Maile has never been a huge standing next to the plate, with a career .209/.277/.320 line and 63 wRC+. However, he has received strong reviews for his work crouching behind the plate over the years. FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus consider him to be an above average framer. Statcast ranks him just a smidge below average at framing but gives him strong marks for his blocking.
For the Royals, they should have Maile ticketed for a similar depth role that he had last year. Franchise legend Salvador Perez is catching less as he ages into his mid-30s but he still caught about 90 games per year for the past three seasons. The Royals traded Freddy Fermin to the Padres at last year’s deadline because they felt good enough about prospect Carter Jensen, who made his big league debut last year.
Perez and Jensen will be sharing the catching duties. Both will likely see notable time as the designated hitter as well. They are the only two backstops on the 40-man roster at the moment. The Royals added some non-roster depth by signing Jorge Alfaro last month and now Maile gives them some more.
Maile is an Article XX(b) free agent, which is a fancy way of saying he’s a standard free agent, one who has at least six years of service time and finished the previous season on a club’s 40-man roster. Under the current collective bargaining agreement, such players get uniform opt-outs dates in minor league deals. Those opt-outs are five days before Opening Day, followed by May 1 and on June 1.
That was the case for Maile last year as well. He had signed a minor league deal with the Royals in February. He opted out of that deal in late March but then re-signed with the club on a fresh pact. He was selected to the 40-man roster for a little more than two weeks in May, was outrighted back to the minors, then was selected back to the roster in July.
Photo courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images
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