Yankees will regret letting Rangers swipe former All-Star catcher after Royals DFA

The New York Yankees' catching situation has been a disaster all season long. While there's some hope that Austin Wells' cervical headaches could explain his dramatic offensive woes, we'll have to wait and see how things go once he returns. His 2025 performance doesn't really support that hypothesis, however.

On top of that, despite Wells' struggles, the Yankees never turned to J.C. Escarra to be anything more than a backup despite Aaron Boone talking him up during spring training. In fact, it was Escarra who was originally sent down for Ali Sanchez before Wells forced the club to do an about-face and recall him to cover for the IL stint.

Sanchez has been pretty good in his brief action, hitting .313/.353/.375 over eight games, but he's striking out 35% of the time. The right-handed-hitting Sanchez is expected to remain on the roster with Escarra being sent down to facilitate Wells' activation from the IL ahead of the series finale against the Cincinnati Reds.

So it looks as if we'll get an extended look at the well-traveled journeyman and, more than likely, we'll soon find out why he's only managed to play 57 games in the big leagues since beginning his career in 2020.

Meanwhile, around the same time the Yankees were giving Sanchez his first opportunity in pinstripes, a veteran right-handed-hitting catcher who was an All-Star in 2023 and took home MVP honors in the Midsummer Classic hit the market. The Kansas City Royals DFA'd Elias Diaz. The Yankees chose not to make a play for him and may end up kicking themselves as a result.

Elias Diaz could have been a cheap solution to the Yankees' right-handed-hitting catcher woes

To be clear, Diaz entered 2026 with a career .247/.300/.383 line and was an All-Star in 2023, much in the same way that Jose Trevino got an All-Star nod with the Yankees the year prior. Still, there are very good reasons to believe that he could have been a high-end backup for New York.

One of Diaz's first orders of business upon joining the Rangers was navigating Jacob deGrom through six shutout innings against the Cleveland Guardians on June 7, drawing serious praise from the former Mets ace.

“He knows how to get hitters out,” deGrom said of Diaz. “He fit right in and had a great game plan.”

Diaz has hit .364/.364/.455 over 22 plate appearances since joining the Rangers. He hit .227/.261/.591 in 23 plate appearances with the Royals. He'll likely come back down to earth a bit, but he's shown enough to prove that, in addition to calling a great game, he can do some of the dirty work on offense to make things happen.

After hitting a game-winning double in extra innings on June 10 against his former team in Kansas City, Diaz victimized them again on June 11, dropping down an RBI bunt single. Bunts, moving runners along with ground balls the other way, and sac flies are all weapons that would help the Yankees greatly.

The 35-year-old backstop is also a rock-solid defender. Despite only playing 19 games this season, he's posted three blocks above average (an 81st percentile mark). He's also quick to pop and has a strong arm to cut down would-be base stealers.

He's not a guy that will make fans forget about their Ryan Jeffers dreams, but he's quickly endeared himself to Rangers fans and could have served as a competent veteran backup who does the little things and hits right-handed. We'll see what the Yankees do at the trade deadline, but this seemed like an easy solution that fell into their lap.

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