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.
The combination of Vazquez’s poor numbers and hefty salary made him difficult to trade, though his name surfaced in a few rumors over the last couple of years. Minnesota traded a ton of veterans and impending free agents at last year’s deadline, but Vazquez stayed put, as he finished out his entire three-year term with the team. Perhaps understandably, there wasn’t a lot of buzz about his free agent market, apart from one report from January linking Vazquez to the Astros.
It took more than a month for the two sides to reach an agreement, but Vazquez did indeed end up putting pen to paper with Houston, and he’ll now compete with Cesar Salazar for the backup catching job behind starter Yainer Diaz. Salazar has all of 36 MLB games on his resume over three seasons with the Astros, plus he is out of minor league options. Carlos Perez is in camp on another minors deal, and while Perez has appeared in parts of five big league seasons, he hasn’t played in the Show since 2023.
An opening therefore exists for Vazquez to break camp with the Astros as Diaz’s understudy. The 35-year-old’s bat may not be very productive, but Vazquez remains a strong defender, logging +5 Defensive Runs Saved over 519 innings at catcher in 2025. Statcast wasn’t quite as favorable in giving Vazquez’s an even 0 in its overall Catching Runs metric, but his blocking and throwing (Vazquez tossed out 14 of 56 base-stealing attempts in 2025) were gauged as above average.
Vazquez’s WBC duties leave him with relatively little time to make an impression in Spring Training, but obviously the Astros have some familiarity with what Vazquez brings to the table. The fact that the Astros are making this signing indicates they aren’t entirely satisfied with their current backup catching situation, and there’s no risk for the club in committing just a minor league deal to Vazquez to take a look at him in camp.
