Twins Trade Andrew Vasquez To Dodgers

The Dodgers acquired left-handed reliever Andrew Vasquez from the Twins last night in exchange for minor league catcher Stevie Berman, the Twins announced. The trade came in just narrowly in time for Vasquez to be an Aug. 31 addition, meaning he can technically be eligible for postseason play, should the Dodgers need to tap that far into their depth.

Vasquez, 28 later this month, was eligible to be traded by virtue of the fact that he hasn’t been on the Twins’ active or 40-man roster all season. He does have five innings of big league experience, all coming back in 2018-19 with Minnesota, during which time he’s yielded six earned runs on five hits, four walks and four hit batters with seven strikeouts.

It’s not a great sample of MLB work, obviously, but Vasquez has had a nice year with the Twins’ Triple-A affiliate in St. Paul. He’s appeared in 33 games and tallied 42 1/3 innings of relief, working to a 3.61 ERA along the way. Command is still an issue for Vasquez, as evidenced by an elevated 12.1 percent walk rate and a whopping 13 hit batsmen. However, he’s also whiffed 37.4 percent of his opponents and posted an enormous 61.8 percent ground-ball rate. Lefties have posted a comically poor .074/.242/.130 batting line against him, while righties have slashed .207/.369/.427.

The 26-year-old Berman gives the Twins some more organizational depth behind the plate. He’s batted just .165/.309/.235 in 140 Double-A plate appearances this season and gone 1-for-9 following a recent promotion to Triple-A. Berman did post a combined .301/.372/.496 slash across multiple minor league levels back in 2019, although that came in a small sample of just 130 plate appearances spread across 40 games. He’s never ranked among the Dodgers’ top 30 prospects at Baseball America and carries a career .240/.334/.343 line in 744 professional plate appearances since being drafted in the 31st round back in 2016.