{"id":648533,"date":"2026-03-28T12:21:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T12:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/648533\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T12:21:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T12:21:24","slug":"astros-outright-cesar-salazar-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/648533\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros Outright C\u00e9sar Salazar – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Astros announced today that catcher C\u00e9sar Salazar<\/a> has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Sugar Land. He had been designated for assignment earlier this week when Houston set its Opening Day roster. He\u2019ll stick in the organization as non-roster depth.<\/p>\n

Salazar, 30, has effectively been Houston\u2019s #3 catcher for several years. Yainer Diaz<\/a> has been the primary guy since 2023. Mart\u00edn Maldonado<\/a> split the time with him in his first year, then Victor Caratini<\/a> replaced Maldonado for 2024 and 2025. Salazar got sporadic playing time in that mix, playing in 36 games over the 2023 to 2025 seasons. He has a decent defensive reputation but produced a .232\/.318\/.268 batting line in his 67 plate appearances.<\/p>\n

He exhausted his final option last year, meaning he is now out of options. With Caratini departing in free agency this offseason, Salazar was bumped up into the #2 spot by default. However, the Astros grabbed Christian V\u00e1zquez<\/a> via a minor league deal a few weeks ago. They decided to add him to the roster for Opening Day, meaning Salazar had to be bumped off.<\/p>\n

This is Salazar\u2019s first career outright and he has less than three years of service time. That means he does not have the right to elect free agency, so he\u2019ll report to the Space Cowboys. He could be the first man up if Diaz or V\u00e1zquez suffers an injury as the Astros don\u2019t have another catcher on the 40-man roster. His main competition would be Carlos P\u00e9rez<\/a>, who is in the system via a minor league deal and will be in Sugar Land as well.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Astros announced today that catcher C\u00e9sar Salazar has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Sugar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,2263],"class_list":{"0":"post-648533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cesar-salazar"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116306776355251298","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648533","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=648533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}