How Christian Vázquez Has Provided Value to the Twins

His offense is still under his career numbers, but he is contributing on both sides of the ball. Paired with Jeffers, the Twins are as strong at the 2 spot as any other ball club.

While many disagree in Twinsland, at catching, defense trumps offense. I remember in an interview with Corbin Burns which he says "It takes many months to develop a good working bond with a good catcher". Vazquez has put in the work to establish that & now we see the fruit of it. Thank you Hunter for bringing the importance of his defense to light. Like you said his batted balls will fall in but if it doesn't, his defense will carry him. In many ways he's valuable to the Twins.

11 minutes ago, saviking said:

But I do like me a good hitting catcher when you can catch one

That's what we have Jeffers for.  Never would have imagined when he first came up in 2020 that he would mature into this monster at the plate.

People talk about Vazquez influence on Jeffers but I wonder about his influence on Pete Maki.

IMO, Vazquez value comes (at this time) from how Jeffers performs, if Jeffers is hitting like he is than Vazquez is more valuable, if Jeffers is not hitting and Vazquez continues to not than his value isn't as high or could possibly is negative. With that said I hope Jeffers continue to crush it and Vazquez continues to crush the defense and his bat get back to at least last year.

1 hour ago, JD-TWINS said:

Good to point out his value, thanks, as many think he should go away.

I like Vazquez. He's still a good defender and clearly worth a major league roster spot. That said, the Twins are not getting $10M worth of value from him.

3 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

While many disagree in Twinsland, at catching, defense trumps offense. I remember in an interview with Corbin Burns which he says "It takes many months to develop a good working bond with a good catcher". Vazquez has put in the work to establish that & now we see the fruit of it. Thank you Hunter for bringing the importance of his defense to light. Like you said his batted balls will fall in but if it doesn't, his defense will carry him. In many ways he's valuable to the Twins.

3 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

While many disagree in Twinsland, at catching, defense trumps offense. I remember in an interview with Corbin Burns which he says "It takes many months to develop a good working bond with a good catcher". Vazquez has put in the work to establish that & now we see the fruit of it. Thank you Hunter for bringing the importance of his defense to light. Like you said his batted balls will fall in but if it doesn't, his defense will carry him. In many ways he's valuable to the Twins.

So you don't think all teams aren't looking at the same defensive metrics. If catching defense trumps offense the Twins or any team would use that to their advantage. Vasquez gets roughly half of the catching duties. If you let him catch 110 or so like you advocate, do you think his numbers might slip due to wear and tear? You've been beating this drum for a long time. Time to play the B side.

Defense is the game ...

If your very good at  defense you have a position on this team , for a few years Kepler was lost at the plate and everyone wanted him gone and twins stuck with him ...

Vazquez has good skills behind the plate and a good repertoire with the pitchers , yes I wish he would hit better , I'll take his defense over his hitting ...

Catching is the most important position of the team , or it used to be , catchers  called the game , positioned players in the field  , but today it's more of the dugout that has the control of the game  , so it seems ...

Vazquez is a decent defensive catcher ...

Nice to hear he went to driveline over the winter to try and improve his game  , so those that don't like Vazquez  should be a little more positive that Vazquez is a  team player ...

39 minutes ago, Blyleven2011 said:

Defense is the game ...

 

Defense is part of the game, not the game IMO.

If you put 8 guys on the field that played defense like Vazquez and hit like him how would that team perform?

Like I said above Vazquez value mostly comes from how well Jeffers is playing, because if Jeffers was hitting like Rortvedt prior to this year we would be screaming about how the Twins catcher duo is bringing the team down. So we should all be hoping Jeffers continues to play this way.

If the Twins wanted a catcher that could hit better then they would have kept Turtle.

As long as Jeffers is starting 130 games a year which is what he’s or pace for then I’m fine the way they’re doing it right now 

Vázquez is better defensively than Jeffers. I think we can all agree that Jeffers should be playing catcher more often but right now with Buxton hurt and Lewis hurt and Wallner in the minors, who else is going to take up that time at DH? If Jeffers is at catcher more often right now, he’s likely playing less games overall so you’re getting the worse defensive catcher, less games with Jeffers and you’re really only replacing Vasquez with Margo, Kiriloff, Martin, or farmer (all brutal options right now)

Until the bench looks better Jeffers and Vázquez should be in the lineup as often as possible as long as Vázquez never DHs  

I wonder if there are more unmeasured aspects to the catching than the other positions. Many successful teams have employed veteran catchers with pretty empty bats. Why? The Astros main catcher through much of their success could not hit. They won the World Series two years ago with the tandem of Maldonado and Vazquez. Neither was on the team for their bats. If you try to convert their measured defensive contribution into wins it really doesn’t appear to outweigh the deficit with the bat. There must be critical aspects of their contribution that goes unmeasured. This is the first year in many the Astros have not had one or even veteran catchers. Could it be part of their struggle this year?

I can’t back up the appreciation I have for Vazquez with data, but I don’t think for a moment he could be replaced by an average or even good minor league catcher. I believe he brings value to the team that is simply not captured very well by the data.

You may have a couple good points but Rocco needs to pinch hit for him in key situations which he seems to always be coming up in. In close games with runners in scoring position he has been pathetic. Hitting weak ground balls or hitting into double plays. Having an automatic out come up in those situations has hurt the Twins in many of their losing games!

This article continues to not age well. Vazquez like farmer are black holes in the lineup.