The Astros announced that catcher Christian Vazquez was signed to a minor league contract. The deal contains an invitation for Vazquez (an MDR Sports Management client) to attend Houston’s big league Spring Training camp. Vazquez will presumably head to the Astros’ camp after the World Baseball Classic, as the veteran backstop is playing for Puerto Rico’s team.
This is the second stint for Vazquez in a Houston uniform, after being acquired as a trade deadline pickup during the 2022 season. Vazquez hit only .250/.278/.308 over 108 plate appearances during the rest of the regular season and then .235/.316/.235 over 19 postseason PA, but he ended up winning a ring as a member of the World Series title team. Vazquez was also part of some particularly memorable baseball history when he was behind the plate for the Astros’ combined no-hitter in Game 4 of the World Series, which was just the second no-no in Series history and the third in postseason history.
Despite his lackluster numbers at the end of the 2022 campaign, Vazquez still landed a three-year, $30MM free agent deal from Minnesota that offsesason. Unfortunately for Vazquez and the Twins, the struggles at the plate continued, as he hit just .215/.267/.311 over 884 PA over his three seasons with the team. While Vazquez was signed more with defense in mind, delivering only a 60 wRC+ eventually slated him into a backup role behind Ryan Jeffers.
More to come…
