{"id":2229244,"date":"2026-01-10T04:49:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T04:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2229244"},"modified":"2026-01-10T04:49:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T04:49:55","slug":"ex-red-sox-rangers-backstop-signs-with-royals-in-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/ex-red-sox-rangers-backstop-signs-with-royals-in-free-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Red Sox, Rangers Backstop Signs With Royals In Free Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Kansas City Royals are suddenly beginning to stockpile minor-league catching talent in anticipation of needing some depth at Triple-A. <\/p>\n

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Earlier this week, Royals on SI chronicled Kansas City’s minor-league deal<\/a> for catcher Jorge Alfaro, a major league journeyman likely to begin the year at Triple-A. As it turns out, Alfaro wasn’t the only catcher the Royals picked up in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

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According to the official transactions log<\/a> of Major League Baseball, the Royals signed 28-year-old catcher Elih Marrero to a minor-league deal, which occurred on Dec. 29, but did not appear on the log for at least a week thereafter. <\/p>\n

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If you like our content,\u00a0<\/em>choose Sports Illustrated as a preferred source on Google<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Royals’ new catcher likely an organizational depth piece<\/h2>\n

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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\n

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Aug 13, 2025; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Kansas City Royals second baseman Tyler Tolbert (2) loses his helmet as he steals third base during the eighth inning against the Washington Nationals at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images | Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

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Marrero, who was an eighth-round pick for the Boston Red Sox in 2018, has 312 games worth of minor-league experience to his name. More than half of those games have come at the Double-A level, but he’s reached Triple-A briefly in each of the last two years.<\/p>\n

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Marrero elected free agency at the end of 2024 and signed a minor-league deal with the Texas Rangers. After riding the bench for most of the season in the Rangers organization (he only got into 20 games between Double-A and Triple-A), it’s no surprise Marrero wanted a change of scenery. <\/p>\n

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To this point, Marrero sports a career .691 OPS in the minors, including a .672 OPS in 184 Double-A games. Unless he makes big strides with the bat in a short window, he probably won’t have much of a chance to make it to the majors in Kansas City.<\/p>\n

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The Royals have Salvador Perez, the team captain, as the aging veteran starter behind the plate. Rookie Carter Jensen, who burst onto the scene as a top prospect this past season, then shined in his brief September debut.<\/p>\n

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In all likelihood, the signings of Alfaro and Marrero are good news for Jensen making the major league roster out of spring training. Mitchell won’t likely debut in Triple-A until later this year, so the Royals will need catchers to help log innings at that level in the meantime.<\/p>\n

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More MLB: <\/strong><\/em>Royals Commit Unforced Errors With Kris Bubic, Vinnie Pasquantino<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.si.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Kansas City Royals are suddenly beginning to stockpile minor-league catching talent in anticipation of needing some depth at Triple-A. Earlier this week, Royals on SI chronicled Kansas City’s minor-league deal for catcher Jorge Alfaro, a major league journeyman likely to begin the year at Triple-A. As it turns out, Alfaro wasn’t the only catcher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2229245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2229244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Ex-Red-Sox-Rangers-Backstop-Signs-With-Royals-In-Free-Agency.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2229244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2229246,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229244\/revisions\/2229246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2229245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2229244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2229244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2229244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}