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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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