Twins turn page on Correa, begin roster building for next season

The Twins held a news conference Friday to promote their costliest free-agent acquisition so far this offseason, a Puerto Rican who's been an accomplished big-leaguer for eight seasons, who plays a pivotal position but also offers leadership qualities beyond his hitting and defense, who won a World Series with the Astros and believes he can do the same in Minnesota.

Yet for all the optimism about, and hospitality for, Christian Vazquez, a veteran catcher who figures to play a prominent role in whatever the 2023 Twins become, you couldn't help but notice the palpable vacuum in the room, the colossal (and permanent) absence of another free agent who happens to fit all those same criteria.

"You prepare yourself for it, but it is a little bit of a gut punch in the moment it happens," president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said of Carlos Correa, who two days earlier officially became an ex-Twin, albeit one $350 million richer. "You're human and you're emotional. You'd like to have the player. You just pick up the next day and try to keep talking about next steps."

Vazquez is one, a clear upgrade, the team believes, over Gary Sanchez's one-season cameo in Minneapolis. He's a lifetime .261 hitter whose production has gradually improved over three of the past four seasons, concurrent with his hiring of a personal hitting coach each offseason since 2019, he said.

He'll earn $30 million as the everyday starter over the next three seasons, and will provide that value, Falvey said, even when he's not in the lineup. Vazquez is known for exhaustive preparation, for durability and defense, and for ingratiating himself with his pitchers.

"Leadership, mentorship of other young catchers in the organization, the ability to call a game and navigate the [upcoming pace-of-play] rule changes," Falvey said. When the Twins investigated Vazquez's background as they prepared to make an offer, "we continued to hear over and over again, this is the guy that's going to make your pitching staff better."

That would be valuable indeed, considering the Twins' 3.98 staff ERA ranked 10th in the American League. And Vazquez, an average MLB hitter but well above-average among catchers, figures to make the lineup mildly stronger, too.

But with Correa and his Gold Glove defense and .836 career OPS gone to San Francisco, how does Falvey — who later in the day added outfielder Joey Gallo on a one-year, $11 million deal — plan to make the Twins better overall?

Hey, he can't wait to find out, too.

"It's hard for me on December 16 to say, 'This is our roster.' That would be foolish for me to say today," said Falvey, whose pattern in his previous six winters of constructing a Twins roster includes several late-in-the-process transactions. He betrayed few potential moves in the works, but added, "I would be shocked if this is our roster by the time we get to spring training."

That said, Falvey doesn't believe a major overhaul of the roster is necessary.

"There are a lot of players coming back that we hope are going to be a really big part of it. So I don't view it as a big change. I don't look at this roster and say, 'Oh, we don't have what we need here to continue to build something," Falvey said. "We think we can compete for the Central [title] and beyond, right?"

So does Vazquez, who has 13 games of postseason experience over four seasons.

"They're very close to winning a championship. That's very important to us, and I can help them a lot behind the plate to bring a championship to this city," Vazquez said of his decision to join a team that hasn't had a winning record in a full season since 2019, nor won a playoff game since 2004. "We're here to start this ride together. It's going to be fun."