Astros Players Send Farewell Messages to Clubhouse Favorite

Once the 2023 season ended, the Houston Astros front office wasted no time in coming out and saying their young catcher, Yainer Diaz, would be the starter next year.

He had a great rookie season, slashing .282/.308/.538 with 23 homers and 60 RBI across 104 games and 355 at-bats.

Offense at the catching spot was hard to come by during Martin Maldonado's six year tenure. He had an OPS+ of 71 during his time with the Astros, which is 29 percentage points worse than the average player.

Still, he was Houston's everyday catcher for six seasons because of his defense, leadership and ability to communicate with the pitching staff and other teammates.

The writing was on the wall that Maldonado would not be back with the Astros next season despite some speculation that he could agree to a short-term deal to be the backup.

However, the signing of Victor Caratini signaled that the veteran's time with the organization was officially over.

Following that news, many Houston players took to social media to post their farewell messages to Maldonado.

Alex Bregman said, "Leader. Made everyone around him better. Thank you."

Reliever Bryan Abreu, Gold Glove winning utilityman Mauricio Dubon, star outfielder Kyle Tucker and starting pitchers Lance McCullers Jr. and Luis Garcia plus other members of the staff also shared messages of appreciation.

Diaz, who is effectively taking the starting job from Maldonado, also posted, "A pleasure and honor to have shared the clubhouse and ideas with you, blessings" on his Instagram story.

Despite some frustrations surrounding the veteran's poor performance at the plate, there's no arguing what he meant to the organization and how successful he was during his time there.

In all six of his seasons with the Astros, they made the playoffs. He also appeared in three World Series and won one championship in 2022.