The Rockies are keeping their catcher around beyond next season, announcing a three-year extension with Elias Díaz. The deal buys out his final year of arbitration-eligibility and first two years of free agency. Díaz will reportedly be guaranteed $14.5MM over its entirety, with the specific salary breakdown yet to be reported.
It’s a nice birthday present for the MAS+ Agency client, who turned 31 yesterday. Díaz has spent the past two seasons in Denver, starting the majority of the team’s games behind the dish in 2021. He’s coming off a nice season, hitting .246/.310/.464 with 18 home runs across 371 plate appearances. Those bottom line results are inflated somewhat by playing his home games at Coors Field, but it’s decent production even after factoring in that favorable environment. By measure of wRC+ — which includes a park adjustment — Díaz’s hitting was about three percentage points better than that of the league average catcher.
That’s one of the better showings of his career. The right-handed hitting backstop entered the 2021 campaign with just a .248/.300/.355 mark across 888 plate appearances between the Pirates and Colorado. He made similar strides on the other side of the ball, rating as an above-average pitch framer (per Statcast) this past season for the first time in his five-year tenure. While he’s drawn mixed reviews as a receiver over the course of his career, he’s consistently done a strong job shutting down the running game. Díaz has cut down 30.4% of attempted base-stealers as a big leaguer, a mark that’s a few percentage points north of the league average in that time.
The Rockies clearly believe Díaz’s numbers this past season better reflect his true talent, and they’ll place a fairly modest bet he can continue to be a capable #1 catcher over the coming years. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz had projected Díaz to land a 2022 salary in the $2.6MM range if he’d proceeded through arbitration. Essentially, the Rockies are tacking on around $12MM in additional money to buy themselves two more years of team control. That’s a bit below the $16MM the Braves guaranteed Travis d’Arnaud on a two-year extension in August (although d’Arnaud’s deal also contained a 2024 club option).
The Rox shouldn’t have much difficulty fitting Díaz’s deal on the books. Colorado entered today with a projected payroll in the $104MM range, in the estimation of Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That’s right in line with their 2021 season-opening tally, but they only have around $56MM in guaranteed 2023 commitments at the moment, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. With the Rockies planning to increase payroll over the coming two seasons, this extension shouldn’t serve as much of an impediment to future additions.
Mark Feinsand of MLB.com first reported the Rockies and Díaz had agreed on a three-year extension. Thomas Harding of MLB.com reported the $14.5MM guarantee.
Image courtesy of USA TODAY Sports.
Why
why not?
Because backup catchers are available every year? Why would you ever give this guy 3 guaranteed years lol
He’s better than virtually all backup catchers. He’s in fact about an average starting catcher. Very solid defensively, league average offense.
Exactly ty. Not sure Darksider knows bball maybe he thought this was nfl for back up quarterback
Maybe I missed something, but why are you referring to him as a backup catcher? He was the Rockies’ starter for most of the season.
Average starting catcher? You mean the same guy who had -2 WAR from 2019-20? The same guy who has awful statcast numbers and bad framing numbers? Give me a break lol he’s a backup at best. 3 years for this guy is just nuts. Manny Pina has a longer and better track record yet he only got 2/8 with a club option. The Rockies continue to amaze (in a bad way)
rols1026
Because backup catchers are available every year?
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You didn’t know that Diaz was the Rox’ starting catcher?
Narrative changed on this guy pretty quickly. I remember when he was in Pittsburgh, thought he was ok enough as a backup even though people said he was bad. Went to Colorado and everyone said he is an awful fielder, now he’s above average?
Why ???
After seeing him implode in Pittsburgh, I would wonder if he would keep up the play level. He had a good season and looked like the long term solution at catcher in Pittsburgh. He proceeded to fall flat. Hope for his sake he keeps it up.
His falling flat in Pittsburgh gave a chance to Stallings who ran with it.
Is he almost as good as Travis d’Arnaud? No and Travis is not elite or anything great. Rox shouldn’t have to overpay hitters.
I guess the Rockies like .203 hitters (road avg) … such as sad franchise.
Lol!
When are they gonna start putting astriks on your stats if you play in Cincinnati, or New York?
Another Venezuelan!
Solid moves, I’m thrilled to keep this 71-win team’s core together long-term.
Haha
This is probably not a bad move. Catching is thin around the league. Diaz is a decent option. Should be moveable at the deadline if a contender wants to sure up their catching situation.
Rockies have to figure out how to develop some pitching and put together an OF. It looks like they don’t want to do a full non competitive rebuild. Which is pretty much always their MO. They don’t tear it down to the studs. Which means they’re never truly terrible but they also hold onto their assets til they recoup next to no value from them.
So…..Hopefully this FO is a lil better.
74, but who’s counting.
The scouting department is counting. 74 wins is too many….
LOL
At least they have a solid record at home. It’s not like you go to Coors field and are paying to see the Pirates?
Wow, this will really turn the course of this Rockies franchise.
“Extend everybody on this great team we have”
But really the Rockies need an outfield. The infield looks alright and this probably isn’t a bad signing.
Outstanding. Who?
Really curious as to what the financials are here. A very solid defensive catcher with some pop… 3/18?
Solid starting catcher for mid innings reliever money. Nice. C is a position with real scarcity, good to lock up a guy who will be a positive, albeit a small one.
Now on to adding a couple pieces this year, getting Welker some run and waiting for Veen to explode on the scene…
Lots of happy news in MLB these days. As a baseball fan, it’s nice to see a maligned franchise like the Rockies making a wise move. Not a great player, but he’s not getting great-player money. Things come and go in baseball, but building a team up the middle is still a winning strategy. Gotta have a reliable catcher to do that. I sincerely hope the Rockies keep adding on.
I doubt the Rockies are going to be “more sure up the middle” than last year. It doesn’t hurt but it’s not going to make this group of players a winner.
They need serious help. Hopefully they can scout and develop better under this FO.
One step at a time. It’s not always about contending for a championship the next year. The flurry of negative comments on this site the past few days is alarming. So-called baseball fans are dumping on some of the game’s best players for wanting to get paid what they’re worth. There is much more positive going on in the game than negative. So, why are some fans so miserable?
Cey Hey – The comments thread here the last few months seems to have gotten significantly more negative. I agree with you, let the players get paid.
I’m hoping the MLB minimum jumps up to at least $1M with the new CBA, and then increases notably in the following years. And I hope the CBT spikes as well, with similar scaling for inflation
Colorado will never be competitive. The altitude and pitching do not mix. While they may make the once in an albatross appearance, they are never around long enough to be considered as true playoff competition.
Wow that is harsh
I always like seeing the random guys get a multi-year deal. $14.5M is life-changing money. Diaz is good enough to stick around and be productive for the length of the deal so its not wasted money by the Rockies.
I don’t think this is a bad signing. 3 years at 14.5 million. He’s got some offensive upside and led the NL with 42.5% CS%. His defensive metrics don’t jump off the score card; but he’s a solid addition.
Kind of reminds me of Miguel Olivo and Yorvit Torrealba – two (2) Rockies Catchers who produced for the franchise.
Now, the Rockies infield needs to be figured out; as well as their Outfield and Bullpen.
Personally, I think you’d be smart to address 3B by signing Kyle Seager and adding Kyle Schwarber to play LF and either Avisail Garcia or Jorge Soler to play RF.
I like Schwarbs, but between Blackman, Tapia, Hampson and Joe, they have enough OFs to cover CF and RF, though all of those guys are more LFs than RFs…
Soler as a DH is a fun thing to imagine though…It’s a lot of low average guys if you add he and Schwarbs…and still SS is a big?
The Rockies receive quite a lot of heat from analysts and fans alike; at times it is surely warranted, but — and maybe it’s because I’m an A’s fan — I have a degree of admiration for how they operate.
So you’re the other a’s fan I heard about. Do the both of you get together from time to time to talk about the state of your franchise and how many of your home grown guys will be shipped out this year?
Haha, where’s this other A’s fan you speak of!? Would love to swap sob stories lol
I respect that they don’t tank. However, they need to do a much better job of drafting and especially player development.
Diaz’s stats are inflated by a great last 5-6 weeks of the season. Prior to that he was bad offensively. Its not an exorbitant contract however and he does have defensive value
Here’s the counter argument to that – Kyle Schwarber was horrible in the first 3 months of last season; than he was given a great chance to move to the lead off spot and he really had a stellar month in June. Some ball players are very streaky players and a hot stretch that lasts 5-6 weeks can be huge to their overall numbers.
Wait…. Where is the author seeing that he was a good pitch framer? Looking at his statcast page it says he was in the 25th percentile…. That is not good….
Is the new GM’s plan to take a bad Rockies team and make sure they stay that way?
I’d like to think I can bash the Rox with the best of them, but this was a solid move. $6M per for the extension, for a league-average catcher, is okay.
Good for him! 31 and still in arbitration getting a payday.
The Rockies top catching prospect is at least two years away so its not like he’s blocking anyone and free agency doesn’t offer much better alternatives
Don’t know exactly how well this will age…
The Rockies have had a lot worse signings than this one. Actually a pretty good one.
Look around. It’s cheap for a 31 yo catcher who can actually play semi to full time in the major leagues
Reasonable deal IMO. Remember when he was supposed to be the pirates catcher, can’t believe he’s 31.