The Royals announced that catcher Luke Maile was signed to a minor league contract. Maile will receive an invitation to Kansas City’s big league Spring Training camp.
Salvador Perez and Freddy Fermin are locked in as the catching tandem on the Royals’ active roster, so Maile projects as a depth piece for their minor league ranks if he remains in the organization. Perez, Fermin, and Brian O’Keefe are the only Royals catchers with any MLB playing time on their resume, so Maile’s nine years in the bigs adds quite a bit of experience to the depth chart.
Maile has played for five different teams during his time in the Show, usually acting as a backup or part-time catcher unless an injury to another catcher opened up more playing time. Maile spent the last two seasons with the Reds, and Cincinnati declined its $3.5MM club option on Maile for 2025 in favor of a $500K buyout.
Long considered a solid defender, Maile’s glovework dipped below average in 2024 in the view of both the Defensive Runs Saved metric (-5) and Statcast’s Catcher Defense metric (-4). His framing and caught-stealing numbers were also subpar, though Maile continued to do well in blocking balls. Maile has only rarely shown much production at the plate, and he hit .178/.268/.252 over 154 plate appearances with the Reds.
While Maile has the big edge in experience over the Royals’ other depth catchers, it should be noted that Perez and Fermin handled every inning behind the plate for the 2024 team, leaving no room for any other backstops to receive playing time. Obviously an injury could arise at any time, but if Maile isn’t comfortably acting as veteran depth at Triple-A, he could opt out of his contract closer to the end of Spring Training if a clearer path to MLB playing time opens up with another organization.