{"id":658191,"date":"2026-04-02T05:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T05:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/658191\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T05:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T05:57:12","slug":"rockies-sign-andrew-knizner-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/658191\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockies Sign Andrew Knizner To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Rockies signed catcher\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kniznan01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-02_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Andrew Knizner<\/a> to a minor league contract on Wednesday. Although the team didn\u2019t announce the move, the 31-year-old jumped right into action tonight with Triple-A Albuquerque.<\/p>\n<p>Knizner hit the market at the end of camp when he was released by the Mariners. He had signed a one-year, $1MM free agent deal with Seattle in December. Knizner surely felt he was the favorite to back up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/raleica01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-02_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cal Raleigh<\/a> at the time, as he was the only other catcher on the M\u2019s 40-man roster. They re-signed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/garvemi01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-02_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mitch Garver<\/a> on a minor league contract at the beginning of Spring Training.<\/p>\n<p>Seattle opted to run it back with a Raleigh\/Garver pairing. They also swung a trade for an optionable third catcher, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/peredjh01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-02_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jhonny Pereda<\/a>, in the interim. Knizner has over five years of service time, meaning he could refuse a minor league assignment while collecting his full salary. Rather than report to Triple-A Tacoma, he tested the market for a clearer path back to the big leagues.<\/p>\n<p>That won\u2019t come immediately, but there\u2019s a decent chance he can play his way into an MLB look with Colorado. The Rox opted for light-hitting minor league signee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sullibr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-02_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Brett Sullivan<\/a> as their backup catcher to begin the season. Third catcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/fulfobr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-02_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Braxton Fulford<\/a> still has a couple options remaining and has hit .221\/.272\/.354 in 41 big league contests. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/goodmhu01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-02_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Hunter Goodman<\/a> is going to be in the lineup almost every day, but no one has a firm hold on the backup job.<\/p>\n<p>Knizner hasn\u2019t provided much offensively at the MLB level either. He\u2019s a career .211\/.281\/.316 hitter in just under 1000 plate appearances. The former seventh-round pick owns a much stronger .292\/.387\/.443 line over parts of four Triple-A campaigns. He\u2019ll pair with Fulford behind the dish in Albuquerque with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mccanky01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-02_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kyle McCann<\/a> on the injured list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rockies signed catcher\u00a0Andrew Knizner to a minor league contract on Wednesday. Although the team didn\u2019t announce the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12643,5,4],"class_list":["post-658191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-andrew-knizner","tag-baseball","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116333579299026180","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}