With the catching market hot of late the Minnesota Twins jumped in and filled one of their holes by signing 31-year-old free agent Christian Vazquez. Vazquez was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in round nine of the 2008 MLB June Amateur Draft from Puerto Rico Baseball Academy. Vazquez worked his way up through the Red Sox system and debuted in the big leagues on July 9, 2014 going 0 for 3 against the Chicago White Sox. The deal, which is pending a physical, will guarantee him $30MM.
The right-handed hitting Vazquez comes to play every day. He caught 138 games in 2019 and in 2021 and caught 47 of 60 games in 2020. Looking back at Twins catchers that caught 138 games or more I found that Joe Mauer caught 139 games just once in his career back in 2008. Before that we need to look all the way back to Butch Wynegar in 1980 to see a Twins catcher behind the plate for 142 games. A.J. Pierzynski was a work-horse catcher too but he peaked at 135 games before getting traded. I guess that is why the stocky 5’9″ Vazquez is known as “Mini Yadi”.
Twins FO will probably put an end to Vazquez catching all most every day as they feel that resting their players for the season ending push is the way to go. That said, Vazquez will be the Twins starting catcher with Ryan Jeffers delegated to carrying Vazquez’s equipment bag and catching periodically. This is a decent pick-up for around $10 million per season for three years when compared to the spending in today’s MLB and he will fit in nicely in the bottom third of the Twins batting order.