by The twins have entered a fast-moving catching market, reportedly agreeing to terms Christian Vasquez with a three-year contract. The deal, which is pending a physicist, will guarantee him $30 million. Vázquez is represented by MDR Sports Management.
A longtime member of the Red Sox, Vázquez now switches uniforms for the second time in five months. Boston traded him to the Astros at the trade deadline last summer, bringing prospects back Willyer Abreu And Emmanuel Valdez for the final half of the season before entering free agency. This left Vázquez in an unfamiliar role to split time with Martin Maldonadobut positioned him to secure his second World Series title.
Vázquez, 32, is one of the best all-around receivers in the game. A lightweight defensive specialist for his first few seasons, the Puerto Rico native has stepped up with the bat over the past four years. He hit .276 / .320 / .477 in 521 plate appearances in 2019, hitting a career-best 23 home runs. Vázquez hasn’t replicated that kind of power outside of a season with perhaps the liveliest ball the league has ever used, never hitting double-digit long balls in another season. However, he has been an adequate hitter in two of the last three years. Vázquez stumbled to .258/.308/.352 in 2021, but was an above-average hitter during the shortened 2020 season and about average in the league last season.
Back in early 2019, he owns a .271/.318/.416 line in just over 1600 plate appearances. That’s five percentage points below the overall league average, in terms of wRC+, but it’s above average for a catcher. Backstops have a cumulative mark of .232/.304/.390 on that stretch. Vázquez doesn’t take many walks and, 2019 aside, rarely hits for power. His high-touch approach differentiates him from most of his positional peers, as he owns the fifth-lowest strikeout percentage among catchers (minimum 750 plate appearances) as of early 2019.
The 2022 season has generally been the norm. Among 29 catchers with more than 300 trips to the par, he had the fourth-lowest strikeout rate (16.2%) and fourth-best contact rate per swing (85.1%). Overall, Vázquez has hit a .274/.315/.399 line in 119 games. He carried an impressive .282 / .327 / .432 with the Red Sox before the trade, but stumbled to a .250 / .278 / .308 in 35 regular season games as an Astro. Vázquez also did very little on offense in his six playoff games.
The Twins are clearly not put off by that slow end to the year. This came in an undisclosed role splitting his reps with Maldonado, and Minnesota presumably anticipates he’ll get a closer look at his output from his stint in Boston moving forward. Offense is only part of the story and Vázquez has a great reputation with the glove.
In his career, Vázquez caught just under 34% of base stealing attempts. He has a more modest 27.1% rating this year, but that’s still just above the league average of about 25%. Statcast also credits him with a better-than-average arm, placing him 20th among 73 catchers with 10+ throws in pop time (average time to throw to second base). Vázquez consistently gets high marks from public field framing metrics. Combining his strong reception with his ability to control the rushing game, he was rated as an above-average receiver for defensive run size saves in all but one season of his career. DRS rated him 11 runs above average in 2022 and rated him 51 runs above average in his eight years in the majors.
That wealth of experience calling games certainly added to Vázquez’s appeal to the Minnesota front office. Twins have young support Ryan Jeffers already at hand. The 25-year-old will continue to see a fair amount of running at Target Field, but president of baseball operations Derek Falvey and GM Thad Levine have both spoken of a desire to add another starting-caliber catcher to match Jeffers. They did just that, leaving coach Rocco Baldelli to decide how to divide playing time.
Jeffers, a right-handed hitter, was vastly better against left-handed pitching (.263/.344/.450) than like-handed opponents (.185/.256/.361) in his first two MLB campaigns. Vázquez also hits right-handed and is better against lefties, but his career splits aren’t as drastic. He has a .257 / .309 / .422 line against left handed and a .263 / .310 / .372 line against right handed. Falvey has already hinted that the Twins don’t intend to confine Jeffers to just the tight end of a platoon, but the presence of a more level-headed hitter in Vázquez gives Baldelli more flexibility in dealing with opposing pitchers.
It’s the first significant dip in free agency for Minnesota this offseason. Vázquez’s contract is right in line with MLBTR’s forecast of $27 million over three years. The specific financial breakdown has not yet been reported, but an even distribution of $10 million annually would put Minnesota’s 2023 payroll at about $107 million, according to Roster Resource’s estimate. There’s a fair amount of room before we get to the rough $134 million mark last season, and the Twins definitely aren’t finished. Tackling shortstop – where the organization awaits by Carlos Correa decision — is the big question, but the Twins could also improve both areas of their pitching personnel (especially the bullpen) and potentially shake up their outfield.
Vázquez’s signing follows last week’s five-year deal between the cardinals and Willson Contreras and this afternoon’s blockbuster he sent Sean Murphy in Atlanta. As a result, the catching market is drying up rapidly. The Blue Jays can still dangle one of their three backstops, with Danny Jansen apparently the most likely to move. Free agency lacks many obvious solutions at this point, with players preferring gloves Austin Hedges, Tucker Barnhart, Robert Perez And Mike Zunino (the latter two of which saw their 2022 seasons cut short by surgery) among the options.
MassLive’s Chris Cotillo reported that Vázquez was making progress on a deal with an undisclosed team. Jon Heyman of the New York Post earlier reported that the backstop was in agreement with the Twins. Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe reported that it was a three-year contract, while Ted Schwerzler of Twins Daily was the first to report the $30 million guarantee.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
