The Royals announced that they have selected the contract of catcher Luke Maile. Outfielder John Rave has been optioned to Triple-A Omaha as the corresponding active roster move. The Royals opened a 40-man spot by designating right-hander Eric Cerantola for assignment.
Maile, 35, is a journeyman depth catcher. Over the years, he has suited up for the Rays, Blue Jays, Brewers, Guardians, Reds and Royals. He has appeared in 465 games in that time. He has a .209/.277/.320 line in 1,304 trips to the plate. That’s not much offensive production but he has been credited with 17 Defensive Runs Saved in his career. FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus both rank him as an above-average framer. Statcast and BP have him above par in terms of blocking.
The Royals are familiar with Maile, as he got into 25 games for them just last year. They brought him back for 2026 via a minor league deal. His addition to the roster today is related to Salvador Perez. Per Thompson, Perez has a sore elbow. It’s unclear how serious the issue is but teams generally don’t like playing with only one available catcher, as it puts them in a very precarious spot if that catcher gets injured. Adding in Maile and swapping out Rave sacrifices a bit of outfield depth but Maile can back up Carter Jensen while Perez is unavailable.
The cost of adding that extra layer of coverage behind the plate is bumping Cerantola off the roster. The 26-year-old was first added to the 40-man in November of 2024, to keep him out of that year’s Rule 5 draft. He got to make his major league debut in May of this year. Thus far, he has four big league appearances under his belt but has allowed six earned runs in a small sample of 5 1/3 innings.
He now heads into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Royals could take as long as five days to explore trade interest, though they could also put him on waivers sooner than that if they so choose.
Though his very small major league track record is not impressive, he could draw interest based on his larger body of work in the minors, where he has generally walked a lot of guys but also racked up lots of strikeouts. He has thrown 93 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level since he was first promoted there in August of 2024. In that time, he has a 3.56 ERA. His 11.7% walk rate is a few ticks higher than average but he has also punched out 30.7% of batters faced.
His four-seamer averages around 95 miles per hour and he also features a low-90s cutter, but most prospect evaluators heap praise on his mid-80s slider. FanGraphs ranked him as the #28 prospect in the system back in April, highlighting that nasty slider. He is still optionable for the rest of this season and one more campaign, so it would be a bit of a surprise if he didn’t land elsewhere via a small trade or waiver claim.
Photo courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images