The Texas Rangers were desperate for catching help in June when Danny Jansen went down with a right forearm strain.
Texas had little organization depth at catcher beyond Kyle Higashioka and the Rangers needed a backup. The Rangers managed to land Elias Diaz, who was with the Kansas City Royals organization but had been designated for assignment in May and was on Triple-A Omaha's temporary inactive list. He opted to become a free agent and he joined the Rangers.
That proved to be one of the best in-season signings for the Rangers. Here's why.
Texas Rangers catcher Elias Diaz. Credit: Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Diaz finished the season with a slash of .234/.266/.404 with eight home runs and 35 RBI. But his bat struggled in his short time with the Royals in the Majors this season, with a slash of .227/.261/.591. He was also coming off a 2025 in which he slashed .204/.270/.337 with San Diego.
His slash with the Rangers went up slightly - .235/.267/.383 in 77 games. But his biggest boost to the lineup came in June when the Rangers needed it most. That month he slashed .300/.293/.375.
So, what happened this season? Diaz didn't have enough at-bats to quality for leaders, but looking at his Statcast page many of his raw numbers and analytic numbers went up from a year ago. In the analytics category, his xBA, xSLG, wOBA and xwOBA all went up. So did his hard-hit percentage, average exit velocity, launch angle sweet spot percentage and barrel percentage.
More notable, he lowered areas that were bringing down his numbers a year ago, including his whiff percentage, his first strike percentage, his first swing strike percentage and his strikeout rate. Diaz became a most disciplined hitter, which likely led to the boost in the analytical numbers above.
His defense is his better asset, and he was solid in that department, even if he didn't qualify for leaders. His blocks above average were plus-2, as was his caught stealing above average. Both would have been near the 70th percentile. His pop time of 1.89 was in the 80th percentile, meaning he can get the ball out of his glove fast to catch would-be base stealers.
Diaz is a free agent after the season. He's 35 years old and the Rangers have two catchers under contract for 2027 in Jansen and Logan O'Hoppe, who was acquired in a trade in July. The Rangers likely won't re-sign Diaz. But at a moment where Texas needed a veteran catcher to step up, he did, keeping the Rangers in the race for the playoffs until the final weekend of the season.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/rangers/onsi as These Improvements Drove Elias Diaz' Surprising Rangers Performance .
