When the Twins signed catcher Victor Caratini to a two-year deal earlier this month, many wondered what would become of Ryan Jeffers, their incumbent backstop. Jeffers, 28, will be a free agent at the end of this season, and after the fire sale at last year’s trade deadline, the possibility of a trade sending him elsewhere felt very real.

Alternatively, of course, the team could keep both players, and deploy them in the same exceptionally even timeshare that Jeffers and Christian Vázquez effected over the last three seasons. The major downside to that plan wouldn’t even be about performance, but about morale. Jeffers has been forthright about his desire to take on a truer starting role, catching 100 or more games a year, and in the last season before he reaches free agency, that desire has surely never been more urgent.

Jeffers made an appearance on Inside Twins, the team’s web show, last week, and sounded like a man confident he’ll get the opportunity he’s been waiting for, without changing teams.

New manager Derek Shelton sang the same tune at Friday’s Twins media luncheon.

“Jeffers is going to be the [starter],” Shelton said. “We’ve talked to Victor about it. The thing we thought about there is we get a guy we think of as a frontline, as someone who is going to play behind Ryan, but he can also play first; he can also DH. Going into this offseason, I don’t think anyone predicted that we would be the [team to sign him]. The fact we were able to add him to our group was extremely exciting.”

Shelton confirmed that he called and spoke to Jeffers directly, so the assurances Jeffers said he’d gotten appear to have come right from the man who will make out the lineup card. General manager Jeremy Zoll also alluded to Caratini’s ability to play first base when discussing the team’s interest in him, so ostensibly, the 81/81 split appears to be dead. Caratini can be penciled in for perhaps 60 starts behind the plate, if everyone stays healthy, and will find more at-bats at first base and DH. Jeffers can aim to qualify for the batting title for the first time, after taking 465 and 464 plate appearances in 2024 and 2025, respectively. Everyone can stop asking pointed questions, now.

On the other hand: baseball teams lie. They lie to their players, all the time, although not usually as directly as by calling them up to tell them something false. More importantly, they lie to each other and to fans, usually indirectly, using misdirection and/or obfuscation. There are lots of little advantages to be found by being cagey, and no baseball executive (at least none of this generation; Dave Dombrowski is a good reminder that it used to be different) is so eager to be honest as to let any possible edge be dulled. 

In other words: the Twins still might end up playing Caratini half the time at catcher. It’s even more likely, though, that they’re going to trade Jeffers, even though they say they aren’t. They talked to Caratini about being ok with a backup catching role and filling in elsewhere to round out his playing time, but they also bid $14 million on a two-year deal for (arguably) the second-best catcher who was on the market this winter, despite knowing they have a limited budget. That investment bespeaks a greater commitment than their words do. Caratini is also the second catcher they’ve proactively acquired this winter, and one way or another, his arrival means the exit of another backstop. The Twins (even more than most teams) can ill afford to carry three catchers, so one of Jeffers and Alex Jackson is a goner.

It could certainly be Jackson, who cost very little to acquire and would be easy to dump for a similar return to some team who doesn’t find a suitable backup catcher by the end of spring training. Jeffers’s looming free agency is hard to ignore, though. The fact that Caratini will be paid more than Jeffers this season is notable, too. Jeffers would net the team a solid return, from any of several teams still looking to figure out that position in a season in which they expect to contend.

I doubt that Jeffers, Shelton or even Zoll are consciously lying to reporters about what all involved expect to happen at catcher this year. However, that doesn’t mean they’re telling the whole truth—and more importantly, the truth is always changing. Jeffers is slated to be the 108-game guy behind the plate for the team in 2026. Within a week, he could well be preparing for the same role with a different team. Three months from now, he could well be muddling through a fourth straight season in a half-time role. Don’t assume anything any of the key players in this miniature drama have said is a solid fact. Everyone involved is working with imperfect or fluid information, and that makes them untrustworthy, even if they have no reason to mislead you.