Royals shouldn't end pursuit of catching depth after latest minor league signing

The Kansas City Royals have a series of smaller scale needs beyond their higher profile pursuits of outfield and second base upgrades as well as their need to narrow their immense major league rotation depth.

Of those lesser discussed needs is their vacant third catcher's role, that's become open due to Luke Maile hitting free agency this winter.

There's several names that could occupy this need both externally or internally for Kansas City in 2026, but the one thing that has seemed pretty certain is that they needed to add their depth regardless.

At first glance, it seemed as though the Royals did that on Monday after it was reported that they'd signed the once high profile prospect Jorge Alfaro to a minor league contract, as per Aram Leighton of Just Baseball.

The reality is though, despite having a bit of name recognition around the league, Alfaro probably isn't the guy to come alongside Salvador Perez and Carter Jensen and occupy the major league third catcher's catching role.

Royals shouldn't end their catching search after signing Jorge Alfaro

On the surface, for a third catcher, Alfaro isn't the worst name in the world for the job. He's coming off a very limited late-season cameo with the Washington season in 2025 in which he hit at a repsectable .256 clip.

However, the issue is there's not a ton to be excited about beyond that, even if he'd only be occupying a limited role if he were to make the majors.

After just a 25 wRC+ season in his limited MLB run in 2023, when he returned to the big leagues in 2025, he posted just a 54 wRC+ in 2025. His OPS was under .600 for the second season in a row and he returned to an over 30.% K-rate for the sixth time in his past seven seasons.

From an underlying metrics perspective, his 44.0% hard-hit rate may've been above average, but his K-rate, whiff rate and chase rates were all extremely low as were his expected metrics (xBA, xSLG and xwOBA).

And other than an impressive 1.87 second pop time, Alfaro was a well below average backstop defensively, with negative ratings in caught stealing above average, blocks above average, and framing rates.

Given the fact he does have some prior prospect pedigree and was at his best an 2.8 fWAR player back in 2018 with Philadelphia and 18 home run hitter in 2019 with Miami, he's not a bad name to add to the fold on an minors deal by any means.

However, he's rarely ever been an above average hitter during his MLB career and hasn't proven to provide nearly enough tools to really compliment a major league catching duo.

This isn't to say that he's not worth a look in spring training, as Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors presumes is part of his contract, but he definitely shouldn't be the last name they consider for the role this offseason.