Jair Camargo Is Back with the Saints, Applying a Bit More Pressure to Christian Vázquez

[Ted Schwerzler]

Coming into the 2024 MLB season, the Minnesota Twins had just three catchers on their 40-man roster. With Ryan Jeffers as the best of the bunch, veteran Christian Vázquez needed to re-establish himself. Jair Camargo looked good at Triple-A, but he was going to have to prove it. Now that Camargo is healthy again, a tough decision looms.

Image courtesy of © Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports

Earlier this season, the Minnesota Twins found themselves needing to promote minor-league catcher Jair Camargo to the big-league roster. He ultimately made his way into the lineup for Rocco Baldelli, and while he still seeks his first hit, the former Los Angeles Dodgers prospect did score a run. Acquired alongside Kenta Maeda in exchange for Brusdar Graterol and Luke Raley, it’s the catcher who remains as the only player part of the deal still in the organization.

Prior to the 2023 regular season, the Twins signed Christian Vázquez to a three-year deal for $30 million. At the time, it looked to be a great move that brought in a serviceable veteran, to fill the shoes vacated by Mitch Garver. Ryan Jeffers was going to take over as the lead man in any platoon, but finding someone who had won to play alongside him made a good deal of sense.

Unfortunately, the two-time World Series winner has been nothing short of a colossal failure for his new organization. After producing just a 66 OPS+ last season, Vázquez spent the offseason working to figure out how to increase his bat speed and turn things around. It has resulted in an even worse offensive performance, and his 31 OPS+ checks in as the worst--literally, the worst--regular hitter across Major League Baseball.

Baldelli is hamstrung, playing Vázquez because he remains a breathing body on his 26-man roster. Jeffers isn’t going to catch every game, and the Twins have recently shown a desire to keep backstops healthy by rotating them. Until someone else takes his spot, Vázquez will get playing time derived entirely from controlling a pitching staff and grabbing extra strikes based on his receiving prowess.

If the Twins are going to make their active roster better, it will require someone removing Vázquez from it, and only Camargo is capable of doing that. Returning to an .828 OPS at Triple-A St. Paul, he got off to a strong start, despite just an 18-game sample size. Last year though, Camargo posted an .826 OPS across 90 games, and he has clearly shown that offensive production is something he can provide at the highest level of the minors.

Camargo is not the defensive stalwart that Vazquez is, and the veteran placeholder is still owed another $10 million next season. The Twins deciding to rip off a band-aid on a sunk cost isn’t a straightforward decision, and it’s a hard sell to an ownership group that has skimped at every possible opportunity for the past handful of months. If Camargo can return to the Saints and explode offensively though, it’s reckless for the Twins to remain status quo.

While Kyle Farmer and Manuel Margot should be considered replaceable on the dirt and in the outfield, Vázquez belongs in that conversation, as well. There’s little reason to keep going with something that clearly isn’t working, and hasn’t for more than a year, other than the eight-figure salary they still owe Vázquez for next season. The Minnesota catching cupboard may be bare behind Camargo, but holding him back isn’t doing them any favors, either.

As the prospect returns to Triple-A, he should have officially flipped the hourglass on Vazquez’s time in a Twins uniform.

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[Karbo]

Vazquez is starting to hit a bit lately. I can't see them dropping him, especially when you consider the fact that there would be no one to step in if an injury took him or Jeffers out for any length of time.

[Linus]

Yea there is zero pressure on Vasquez. I can give you $10 million reasons. 

[Cory Engelhardt]

4 minutes ago, Karbo said:

Vazquez is starting to hit a bit lately. I can't see them dropping him, especially when you consider the fact that there would be no one to step in if an injury took him or Jeffers out for any length of time.

I was going to add, Margot is starting to hit a little too it feels like. Hard to see either being that close to being cut/dfa'd. 

[$tryf4Life]

29 minutes ago, Linus said:

Yea there is zero pressure on Vasquez. I can give you $10 million reasons. 

The only pressure on a twins active roster is with those who have minor league options. I can’t event squint and see the twins releasing veterans like Vasquez. 

[DJL44]

Vazquez is defending well enough to cancel out his bad bat. He's not the worst catcher in baseball with a regular job. If the Twins released him another team would definitely be willing to pay him the minimum to be their backup catcher. The money is a sunk cost so the Twins might as well keep him.

[Patzky]

I see your dropping Vazquez and adding Camargo and raise you dropping Kirilloff and adding Wallner.

 

Oh I see what y'all did there..

[Dman]

There is no pressure on Vasquez.  The only way Camargo comes up would be as an injury replacement.  Vasqy's defense is too valuable and they will just have to live with what he can give them offensively.

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

There is 0% chance that Camargo unseats Vazquez this season.

[4twinsJA]

If Vasquez traded and Camargo called up, who is 3rd catcher-Williams, Isola, Winkel. None of them have shown they are MLB ready. 

[Rod Carews Birthday]

I think if there is a catcher injury and Camargo comes up and fills in well, that makes a decision for NEXT season a possibility.  Right now, there is practically no chance that Vazquez is replaced this season, especially with his improved hitting of late. If Camargo doesn’t get any playing time this season, I think they will be quite reluctant to move on from Vazquez this winter, as they won’t have seen him play enough in the majors to make a good judgement.  Plus, there’s that contract. . . . 

[Doctor Gast]

Catching is the premiere defensive position and Vazquez is one of the top ones, Jeffers is considerably lower. Right now he's out hitting Jeffers, Vazquez was brought in to resurrect our catching staff after the departure of Garver & Rortvedt in '22. Jeffers hasn't proved yet that he can physically & emotionally take on the primary catching duties. IMO during this hitting slump of Jeffers w/o any defensive chops to fall back on he'd flounder much like '21 & especially '22. Vazquez should take the credit for being Jeffers safety net in '23 so he could thrive & be recognized as a viable catcher. Plus his defense, it's great how he handles the pitchers & INFers. The fact that he's been healthy (which is unusual for a Twin & catcher) we have been very fortunate. Because Jeffers left alone with our shabby depth for a prolonged amount of time would be disastrous.

While Carmargo is a pretty good AAA hitter (We have no idea how Carmargo will handle MLB pitching) & has a good arm, the Twins have failed to develop him enough defensively. So any idea of DFAing or trading Vazquez is ridiculous along with throwing the rest of '24 &'25 salary money away. We are stuck with Vazquez so why don't you try cheering for him instead of putting him down,

[mnfireman]

A lot of articles about releasing veteran players because of perceived lack of performance lately; does the TD staff/contributors do ANY research?

Looking at the last 30 days, a pretty good indicator of present performance, shows that Vazquez is out-performing Jeffers, and it's not even close. The catching is split about evenly, with Jeffers gets additional PA's at DH.

This same 30 day data also shows that Santana has earned the bulk of the playing time at 1B, and that Margot and Farmer are doing their jobs as bench pieces/spot starters. All of them have been the subject of recent TD articles calling for their release/DFA, or at the very least, mentioned as candidates for release/DFA. 

Everyone is entitled to an opinion and has their favorite players, but do not let this over-shadow facts when writing front page articles. Those opinions are better reserved for blog entries.

 

[Riverbrian]

No pressure is being applied to Vazquez. 

Camargo gets the call when an injury occurs and probably minimal playing time when that happens. 

Castro is firmly #3 on the depth chart and whatever he does won't change that. Unless Olivar goes meteoric rising from his current location in Cedar Rapids. 

 

[nicksaviking]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

Vazquez is defending well enough to cancel out his bad bat. He's not the worst catcher in baseball with a regular job. If the Twins released him another team would definitely be willing to pay him the minimum to be their backup catcher. The money is a sunk cost so the Twins might as well keep him.

No amount of defense can make up for a .485 OPS.

Agree that other teams would take a chance on him if he was basically free though.

[DJL44]

34 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

No amount of defense can make up for a .485 OPS.

Catchers mostly don't hit and in this low offense environment it's even worse. Vazquez is 51st in OPS among catchers this season. There are 60 roster spots which means there are 9 teams getting less offense than the Twins out of their backup catcher. Many of those teams are also getting less defense from their backup catcher which is reflected in Vazquez' WAR of 0.0. If Vazquez can provide an OPS the rest of the season in the 580-600 range (like his past two seasons) he would finish the season in the mid-40s for catcher OPS which is a pretty good bat for a backup catcher.

[TwinsDr2021]

3 hours ago, Linus said:

Yea there is zero pressure on Vasquez. I can give you $10 million reasons. 

Was going to say the same, the only pressure on Vasquez is the pressure he puts on himself.

[Jocko87]

1 hour ago, mnfireman said:

A lot of articles about releasing veteran players because of perceived lack of performance lately; does the TD staff/contributors do ANY research?

Looking at the last 30 days, a pretty good indicator of present performance, shows that Vazquez is out-performing Jeffers, and it's not even close. The catching is split about evenly, with Jeffers gets additional PA's at DH.

This same 30 day data also shows that Santana has earned the bulk of the playing time at 1B, and that Margot and Farmer are doing their jobs as bench pieces/spot starters. All of them have been the subject of recent TD articles calling for their release/DFA, or at the very least, mentioned as candidates for release/DFA. 

Everyone is entitled to an opinion and has their favorite players, but do not let this over-shadow facts when writing front page articles. Those opinions are better reserved for blog entries.

 

This was my thought reading the headline and barely skimming that article.  Is this your first day covering the Twins?

This is an organization that makes a rookie destroy AAA and be functional on defense for several months before considering ceding minimal playing time in the bigs.  And that's for a utility outfielder type.  A catcher is so far off the spectrum of something they would experiment with I can't even believe this passed the admittedly low bar for Twins Daily content.

Vazquez is worth $10m to me.  I guarantee they are fine with it too.  Now that he's hitting a bit, the stove is ice cold.

[Linus]

I will give the guy credit for being durable. We are going on a year and a half of using two catchers which is unheard of. 

[Schmoeman5]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

Catchers mostly don't hit and in this low offense environment it's even worse. Vazquez is 51st in OPS among catchers this season. There are 60 roster spots which means there are 9 teams getting less offense than the Twins out of their backup catcher. Many of those teams are also getting less defense from their backup catcher which is reflected in Vazquez' WAR of 0.0. If Vazquez can provide an OPS the rest of the season in the 580-600 range (like his past two seasons) he would finish the season in the mid-40s for catcher OPS which is a pretty good bat for a backup catcher.

Except he's not the "backup"  I think he actually has more starts behind the dish. Let's go back to last year. I know there's  no crystal ball. BUT. Do the Twins sign Vasquez 3 for 30 if they knew they were getting these offensive numbers from him? I think not. 🤔 

[DJL44]

17 minutes ago, Schmoeman5 said:

Except he's not the "backup"  I think he actually has more starts behind the dish. Let's go back to last year. I know there's  no crystal ball. BUT. Do the Twins sign Vasquez 3 for 30 if they knew they were getting these offensive numbers from him? I think not. 🤔 

Is #2 catcher better? Teams need 2 catchers like they need 5 starting pitchers and 8 relievers.

I doubt they are getting what they hoped for offensively when they signed Vazquez. His paycheck doesn't figure into whether or not he's worth keeping now. They can't find anyone better unless they trade for a different team's #1 catcher. Everyone available on the waiver wire is worse.

[Patzky]

1 hour ago, Linus said:

I will give the guy credit for being durable. We are going on a year and a half of using two catchers which is unheard of. 

Damn you jinxed us. Who's going down against Oakland?

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, Schmoeman5 said:

Except he's not the "backup"  I think he actually has more starts behind the dish. Let's go back to last year. I know there's  no crystal ball. BUT. Do the Twins sign Vasquez 3 for 30 if they knew they were getting these offensive numbers from him? I think not. 🤔 

There have been 79 guys to get at least 1 PA as a catcher (according to Fangraphs). Of those 79, Jeffers is 23rd at 136 and Vazquez is 25th at 132. He's most certainly not a "backup." And, no, they absolutely don't sign him for 3/30 if they knew this is how his first 2 years would go. There's a reason he was struggling so hard (according to all the reports) to find someone to give him a 3rd guaranteed year. Teams didn't want to be in the spot the Twins are now in.

But, to be fair to Vazquez, he's been hitting better than Jeffers recently so not being the backup at this point in time makes sense.

[chpettit19]

50 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Is #2 catcher better? Teams need 2 catchers like they need 5 starting pitchers and 8 relievers.

I doubt they are getting what they hoped for offensively when they signed Vazquez. His paycheck doesn't figure into whether or not he's worth keeping now. They can't find anyone better unless they trade for a different team's #1 catcher. Everyone available on the waiver wire is worse.

No, #2 catcher isn't better. Yes, the team needs 2 catchers, but that doesn't mean one has to be bad. Just like needing 5 starters doesn't mean any of them have to be bad. He's not a #2 catcher, either. He's got the 25th most PAs as a catcher in the majors this year. That's a #1 catcher according to the fact that there's 30 teams. The Twins don't do "backup" catchers. They do co-catchers. You can't have 1 good catcher and 1 bad catcher if you're going to split them 50/50. Unless you want to take away the entire advantage of having that 1 good catcher and are just looking for league average performance out of that spot.

Vazquez is very good defensively, and I don't think there should be any question about whether or not he's worth rostering. But 3/30 was too much when he signed, and way too much now. The Twins are stuck with him no matter what for this year and at least most of next cuz they aren't going to eat that money or trade a prospect to get rid of him. The real problem right now is that Jeffers is terrible.

[Linus]

53 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

No, #2 catcher isn't better. Yes, the team needs 2 catchers, but that doesn't mean one has to be bad. Just like needing 5 starters doesn't mean any of them have to be bad. He's not a #2 catcher, either. He's got the 25th most PAs as a catcher in the majors this year. That's a #1 catcher according to the fact that there's 30 teams. The Twins don't do "backup" catchers. They do co-catchers. You can't have 1 good catcher and 1 bad catcher if you're going to split them 50/50. Unless you want to take away the entire advantage of having that 1 good catcher and are just looking for league average performance out of that spot.

Vazquez is very good defensively, and I don't think there should be any question about whether or not he's worth rostering. But 3/30 was too much when he signed, and way too much now. The Twins are stuck with him no matter what for this year and at least most of next cuz they aren't going to eat that money or trade a prospect to get rid of him. The real problem right now is that Jeffers is terrible.

Plus he’s probably worth $5 million a year so what we really are eating is DeSclafani like money. Makes no sense to get rid of him now. 

[DocBauer]

Is he worth $10M per based on what his offense has been last season and this year...not previous seasons...but last and now? Nope. Is his experience and great defense probably worth $5M in today's market for a 1/3-ish catching tandem partner? Yes. The problem is Jeffers...despite a recent slump...a better overall hitter with more power. I think even Jeffers bashers will agree to that. And as has been said, the Twins like to do a pretty equitable split between their backstops. And I like the idea behind it, especially when a guy like Jeffers can also help some at DH when he's going good.

The problem is even with a slight upswing in his AVG the past couple of weeks...but below season totals in OB% and SLG%...Vazquez is not hitting like a co-catcher should be for anything close to a 50/50 split, which is why I mentioned the 1/3 share time idea.

But his defense is damn good. And catcher, frankly, is a different discussion that an INF or OF in regard to offense vs defense. So no, despite some ugly results, I don't think Vazquez is feeling any pressure right now, other than what he's putting on himself.

I'm very intrigued by Camargo. From everything I've read and heard he's a good teammate, handles the staff well, calls a solid game, is solid behind the plate, and has a pretty strong arm. He's never going to win any batting titles, but he can hit at least a little, and he's got power. Do I have a suspicion he could come up tomorrow and quite possibly out perform Vazquez? Yes I do. And I'd like to see him get the opportunity to play at some point. But with a team still trying to find it's true self and quit playing Jekyll and Hyde, the offensive production from  the #3 catcher isn't really at the top of the list of concerns, IMO.

If and when the Twins do make a move...other than Camargo getting a natural promotion when someone hits the IL...I don't think anything permanent would take place until after this season. That gives the Twins time to evaluate Vazquez and Camargo both for the remainder of the season, get $10M worth of Vazquez this season, and make a decision based on season #3 before season #3 starts...but not now.