Is Christian Vazquez Too Expensive for the 2024 Twins Roster?

Don't turn a strength at this position into a weakness, nor do you want to do to Jeffers what they did to Mauer. Keep Vazquez and see how the season rolls and his true value might come at the trade deadline.

Keep him for sure. I expect he can bounce back offensively and defensively he brings a lot to help get more out of our pitchers as well.  His price tag is a bit steep, but good catchers are hard to come by and he brings upside with his bat that we have yet to see but he has proven it over his career.  

I expect a bounce back season for him just as I expect Correa to perform better as well in 2024.

Vazquez is still a plus defensive catcher. His batting line wasn't great but was pulled down by an especially bad May. 

I completely reject that the new TV contract means the Twins need to start cutting payroll. They already receive more money in revenue sharing than they pay out in payroll. That means payroll is covered before they sell one ticket or one hot dog. They could afford to spend like San Diego but choose not to.

Twins would be stupid not to listen to offers, though I would not sell low. We have needs in the OF, SP and pitching prospects.  If I can get a starting RH OF and a pitching prospect, I'm moving him 

There is no trade value......he isn't going anywhere.  How are Carmargo's defense skills viewed (anyone have any insight?)

A  recent thread discussed why the pitching staff was so darn good this year, but it didn't mention Vasquez.  So it made me wonder, do the pitchers like throwing to him? Do they give him any credit for their success?  I wonder if they pitched well because of him or in spite of him.  I know there are pitchers around the league who love their catcher so much that they won't throw to anyone else. Any Twins pitchers feel that way about Vasquez?  I may not have paid close enough attention, but I don't recall any pitchers' comments  about him, good or bad. In any case, I believe the adage that a teamust be strong defensively up the middle, starting with the catcher.  A good BA is a bonus. So, to keep him or trade him? I couldn't decide until I know the answers to the above questions.

Sorry for the underlining. I didn't realize it was on.

Having a TOP defensive catcher is every "good" teams priority. Having 2 Very good catchers is a VERY good thing. Offense is a bonus. How was our pitching staff this year? That is DIRECTLY mirrored by our catching.... they go together. (See St. Louis if doubt) 

With the possible loss of Maeta and Gray means we need to have great catching to direct our staff.. as the saying goes. 

"If it ain't broken... don't fix it" 

13 minutes ago, miracleb said:

There is no trade value......he isn't going anywhere.  How are Carmargo's defense skills viewed (anyone have any insight?)

Carmargo is still bat first but defensive skills are coming strong. Once Vasquez moves on, we will have an awesome catcher tandem! Vasquez will likely only catch 50-65 games in 2024 so his bat should rebound when he is in the lineup. Is $10M to expensive? Heck no!!! His experience is well worth that contract!! If Carmargo makes big strides in 2024 and we are rolling to a deep playoff run in 2024, we could trade Vasquez next offseason but this year? No way!!!

20 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Vazquez is still a plus defensive catcher. His batting line wasn't great but was pulled down by an especially bad May. 

I completely reject that the new TV contract means the Twins need to start cutting payroll. They already receive more money in revenue sharing than they pay out in payroll. That means payroll is covered before they sell one ticket or one hot dog. They could afford to spend like San Diego but choose not to.

The other 300 employees still need to be paid.  Travel / Equipment / office space / and Target field operations still need to be paid. Revenue goes down and spending goes down just like every other for-profit business in America.  I am not hoping they do something differently than every other business.  I am hoping they find a profitable distribution channel.

Lets put it this way. I am sure the FO would gladly shred this contract if they could. But hey, you make omelets and you are going to break eggs. 

I am not sure how Fan Graphs derives $7.6 worth of 2023 value from him as he had negative WAR for the season.

I agree with Miracleb; moving Vasquez is an academic question. No one will take that contract unless the Twins eat all or most of it which defeats the purpose.   

Sanchez played for $1 million last year. Would I rather have Sanchez and $9 million for the next two years to sign Gray? Yes, I would. 

Moving Vazquez would be a poor choice. Because of his contract coming off a poor offensive season, he's not going to bring anything significant back, so all it would be is a salary dump...and even then the Twins would have to eat a decent portion of the contract to get someone else to take him off their hands, so how much do you really save? And then you need to get a backup in place, because even if you want to ride Jeffers a little more heavily you just can't count on a catcher going more than 120 games these days. If they go with Carmago for that role, they have no options if he's not ready to handle it, and pretty screwed if Jeffers goes down with injury.

Might they look to move Vazquez after next season, if Carmago looks ready/continues to show things? Sure. And hopefully at that point he's rebounded a little more value on the offensive side and on an expiring deal would be much easier to move: not much risk in a 1-year deal. The defense is still good from Vazquez, and he can be a quality backup for Jeffers next season that can add more value than this season.

If they really need to save payroll, Farmer or Polanco are more likely options to be dealt: both would bring back a better return and could be moved without having to retain any of their salary, and both are in positions of better depth from the team.

They can afford Vasquez

  If they can throw 11 million on Gallo that produced mostly strikeouts and contributed very little, they can afford to keep Vasquez.  At least he had some proven value in prior years.  Gallo with his .199 lifetime average and a strikeout rate approaching 40% was rewarded with an 11 million contract last year.  I know Gallo isn't a catcher.  Just using the financial example.  Keep Vazques.  He's bound to get better.  Plus maybe he can teach Jeffers how to play defense.

The intangible of how Vazquez handles pitchers is invaluable. One of the main reasons why our pitchers were very successful and Jeffers's improvement is because of him. Which he doesn't get enough credit for. His addition took us from last year's bottom-of-the-barrel to upper average.

It's a shame we don't have a high-ceiling-catching prospect to take advantage of Vazquez's mentoring. Our highest-catching prospect is Cosetti,  which is 466th on Roto's list & high A. Carmargo could be OK for MLB 3rd catcher but I don't see him as backup. 

Twins don't put enough importance on athletic/good-hitting catchers. A slow, low-average catcher that can hit an occasional homer is good enough for them. Catching is a premium position, the Twins catching depth is very shallow they should put importance on it in last year's draft. Cole Carrigg which IMO was the 2nd best college catcher, was available to us in the 2nd round. Instead, they picked up an inferior prospect at 2B where we have a large glut.

Should we trade Vazquez? I don't think so. We still lack depth & we'd get nobody in return because of his contract.

No, Christian Vazquez is not too expensive for 2024. Starting pitching is critical to any winning team and then it is necessary to have someone to catch the ball. Until the Twins have someone better in their system to promote and another guy as a backup in case of an injury, Vazquez stays. Camargo is the backup now. Perhaps after next season Noah Cardenas rises to become a worthwhile MLB catcher. No more Sanchez or Garver guys behind the plate says every pitcher ever.

@Doctor Gast I still a bit salty about Carigg not being drafted by the FO.

5 hours ago, Minderbinder said:

Buy high, sell low.  Seen it before and it never seems to get old....

My favorite ploy for handling stocks. Always worth it because my wife gets excited by the sameness of my financial acumen.

Vazquez hit .223 this year. Now all of the sudden he's not worth $10M per year and people think he should be traded. Evidently his defense and dugout presence isn't worth anything. Correa hit .230 this year. He made $33.3M and almost everyone here thinks he's worth every cent he gets regardless of how bad he was offensively because he also plays great defense and is a leader in the clubhouse. I don't get it. Maybe my Kool-Aid didn't come from a Dior store.

On 10/21/2023 at 8:47 AM, Major League Ready said:

The other 300 employees still need to be paid.  Travel / Equipment / office space / and Target field operations still need to be paid. Revenue goes down and spending goes down just like every other for-profit business in America.  I am not hoping they do something differently than every other business.  I am hoping they find a profitable distribution channel.

None of those expenses make the Twins any different than the Padres. The Twins are probably 8 figures ($100M+) in profit.

18 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

None of those expenses make the Twins any different than the Padres. The Twins are probably 8 figures ($100M+) in profit.

They have been around 270-300M revenue.  A 153M payroll also has roughly $17M is payroll taxes and player benefits.  That’s $170M.  Therefore, they would have to have operating costs of nest to nothing to arrive at the number you have come up with.  The articles I have seen on operating expenses suggested they run 30-35% revenue which is roughly $90M leaving a profit of $10-$40M which is consistent with the estimates we have all seen.  Just throwing a number out there is not credible.  Show us some foundation or any other publication that has arrived at the same conclusion.

3 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

They have been around 270-300M revenue.  A 153M payroll also has roughly $17M is payroll taxes and player benefits.  That’s $170M.  Therefore, they would have to have operating costs of nest to nothing to arrive at the number you have come up with.  The articles I have seen on operating expenses suggested they run 30-35% revenue which is roughly $90M leaving a profit of $10-$40M which is consistent with the estimates we have all seen.  Just throwing a number out there is not credible.  Show us some foundation or any other publication that has arrived at the same conclusion.

Average MLB team revenue is at least $300M. The Twins are not far below average. If you assume $90M in operating expenses (which seems really high but I'll accept it). that's $40M in cash to the bottom line. Then you get the playoff windfall of $10M for four sold-out playoff games. Then you get windfalls like the sale of MLBAM, the tax shelter aspects of owning an MLB team and the increasing value of the team itself (up 12% yearly on a $2B valuation) which doesn't end up in your accounting but is a very real benefit to the Pohlads.