{"id":544272,"date":"2026-01-29T16:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/544272\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T16:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:33:12","slug":"astros-interested-in-christian-vazquez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/544272\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros Interested In Christian V\u00e1zquez"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Astros\u2019 focus this offseason has been on bolstering the pitching staff, and they\u2019ve done that in a meaningful way with acquisitions of Tatsuya Imai<\/a>, Mike Burrows<\/a> and KBO standout Ryan Weiss<\/a>. They\u2019re not entirely done tweaking the roster yet, however. Chandler Rome of The Athletic reports<\/a> that Houston has interest in a reunion with veteran catcher Christian V\u00e1zquez<\/a> following Victor Caratini<\/a>\u2019s free agent departure. A deal between the two parties isn\u2019t seen as close, Rome adds, but the interest is nonetheless notable in that it signifies interest in adding a veteran backup to 27-year-old Yainer Diaz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the moment, the out-of-options C\u00e9sar Salazar<\/a> is the only other catcher on Houston\u2019s 40-man roster. Salazar will turn 30 in March and has 67 major league plate appearances under his belt. He\u2019s a .232\/.318\/.268 hitter in that minuscule sample and hasn\u2019t fared too much better in the upper minors. He slashed .213\/.353\/.353 in 186 Triple-A plate appearances last year and is a lifetime .226\/.361\/.348 hitter in 799 trips to the plate at that level.<\/p>\n

Salazar is a fine defender who draws enough walks in Triple-A to post solid on-base numbers. However, the bit of power he showed earlier in his career \u2014 27 home runs in 639 minor league plate appearances from 2021-22 \u2014 has completely dried up in recent seasons. Salazar has come to the plate 796 times between the majors and minors across the past three seasons and connected on 15 home runs. His 2025 season in the majors consisted of only 11 games and 16 plate appearances, but Statcast measured his average sprint speed at 22.4 feet per second \u2014 the second-slowest mark in Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n

V\u00e1zquez, 35, isn\u2019t much fleeter of foot (24.7 ft\/sec) and has a long track record of sub-par to poor offense. He hit .189\/.271\/.274 in 214 plate appearances with Minnesota last season and slashed only .215\/.267\/.311 in 884 turns at the plate over his three years as a Twin. V\u00e1zquez is an elite defender, however, and he draws plenty of praise for his game-calling and ability to manage a pitching staff.<\/p>\n

While V\u00e1zquez wouldn\u2019t move the needle much in terms of Houston\u2019s overall chances at contending, there\u2019s something to be said for bringing in a veteran who can at least handle a bigger workload while providing plus glovework in the event of a Diaz injury. Presently, if Houston were to lose Diaz to an injury, they\u2019d be looking at Salazar and either 2022 sixth-rounder Collin Price<\/a> or non-roster invitee Carlos P\u00e9rez<\/a> as their catching tandem. Price has split his time between catching, first base and the outfield. He draws decent framing marks but poor grades for his throwing and ability to block balls in the dirt. P\u00e9rez is a 35-year-old journeyman who hasn\u2019t played in the majors since 2023 and carries a career .218\/.267\/.327 line in 859 plate appearances.<\/p>\n

V\u00e1zquez spent the second half of the 2022 season with the \u2019Stros and still has some familiarity with several members of the staff. He caught Cristian Javier<\/a>, Bryan Abreu<\/a> and Lance McCullers Jr.<\/a> that season, and current ace Hunter Brown<\/a> made his MLB debut late in the \u201922 campaign as well. V\u00e1zquez also knows Astros lefty Steven Okert<\/a> from the pair\u2019s time together in Minnesota during the 2024 season.<\/p>\n

If not V\u00e1zquez, some kind of low-cost catching acquisition feels prudent. Alternate options in free agency include Jonah Heim<\/a>, Gary S\u00e1nchez<\/a>, Elias D\u00edaz<\/a>, Luke Maile<\/a>, Mitch Garver<\/a> and Matt Thaiss<\/a>. It\u2019s also likely that there will be some catchers passed around the waiver carousel over the course of spring training, and Houston could jump on any of those names as they become available as well.<\/p>\n

The Astros want to remain under the luxury tax threshold<\/a> in 2026. RosterResource<\/a> pegs their current CBT obligations at about $238.5MM \u2014 $5.5MM shy of the $244MM threshold. Bringing in another catcher should be doable while still leaving some modest breathing room for in-season additions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Astros\u2019 focus this offseason has been on bolstering the pitching staff, and they\u2019ve done that in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,1250,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-544272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-christian-vazquez","10":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115979354462252015","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}