St. Paul – There’s a lot of uncertainty about the Minnesota Twins’ catcher situation next year as the off-season begins.
Christian Vázquez will be a free agent in the coming weeks. Ryan Jeffers is a likely trade candidate this offseason, and Minnesota is likely going to outright Mickey Gasper and Jhonny Pereda off the 40-man roster once the roster crunch hits. The Twins may be without a starting catcher, let alone a backup. So, who do they have, even internally, to fill the backup position?
Assuming the Twins don’t pursue any free-agent options, Noah Cardenas and Patrick Winkel finished their year at Triple-A St. Paul and could back up Jeffers next season. Both are college catchers from Minnesota’s 2021 draft class. Cardenas is the backup option with more to offer at the plate, while Winkel is the prototypical backup catcher, who is a better defensive player.
Winkel hit .217/.278/.386 with seven home runs and 25 RBI over 180 plate appearances this season. Cardenas put up a .245/.387/.438 slash line with 10 home runs, and 33 RBI over 256 plate appearances.
However, Winkel is arguably the best defensive catcher the Twins had at Triple-A this season. He only caught 42 games, but had only two passed balls and one error in 352 ⅔ innings behind the plate, compared to Cardenas’ nine passed balls and five errors in 496 innings caught.
The Saints benched Jair Camargo and Diego Cartaya for most of April, but they gave them most of the starts behind the plate throughout the year. 2025 was a season for Winkel to build up his confidence and make the most of limited opportunities.
“Last year, I was a little bit more reserved first year in Triple-A,” said Winkel. “Had a slow start as far as playing time went this year, but I think they gave me a really good opportunity to realize, ‘Hey, you know, when you do bad out there, there’s no feeling sorry for yourself, there’s no being reserved.’
“You’ve got to enjoy every second of it and keep your foot on the pedal because you’re not going to know if you’re going to have that the entire time.”
For Cardenas, he was happy to reach a new level this season and be just a call away from achieving his dream.
“Last year, I kind of struggled in the sense of being as consistent as I’ve wanted to be,” said Cardenas. “This year, I feel like I’ve steadied a lot better, knowing what you’re going to get when I come up to the box. Just putting together good at-bats. And I think Triple-A was fun, like we talked about, getting called up and you’re just trying to show the guys around you what your game is.”
Both players have demonstrated they belong at Triple-A, but are they ready for the next level? Even a great Triple-A hitter like Gasper, who hit .285/.385/.531 in 208 plate appearances with the Saints, had a hard time replicating the same success in the majors, hitting .158/.257/.232 in 110 plate appearances with the Twins.
Winkel and Cardenas don’t have the same track record of success in the minors as Gasper has had on offense, which makes it more challenging to know if either can fit into a backup catcher role, providing at least some offensive production. Winkel’s defense is the key factor in determining who it could be between the two.
He’s worked with many of Minnesota’s younger pitchers at all levels of the minors and has a strong companionship with the pitching staff. That in itself may be what adds him to the 40-man roster over Cardenas, who has proven to be the better hitter between the two. However, given their five years in the Twins’ farm system and the front office’s lack of indication to sign a new backup catcher in free agency, one must assume that both could see playing time in the majors next season.
It’s hard to know how they’ll perform in the majors next season. Still, given their strong track record with their pitchers, that should give Twins fans some hope of who will hold down catcher in the next couple of years before Eduardo Tait is with the team.
“So [this season] it gave me a new kind of respect for the game and a new love for it,” Winkel said. “Honestly, we found a lot of things that worked this year on both sides of the ball. Just keep hammering that out and see what we can do in the off-season.”
“Things for next year, it’s really the same thing in the off-season,” said Cardenas. “How do I maintain the best I can throughout the whole season, maintain spiritually, maintain physically, because catching is one of the more physically challenging positions?
“I think most growth you can really have in that area is in the off-season, just like lifting, being consistent with your hitting, your nutrition, in the off-season, you can have more control of those things. It’s a great blessing to be able to do that and just look back on the season and just really enjoy what God has done this year.”