Twins Sign Victor Caratini, Fail in the Art of Deception

“I’ve talked to Byron [Buxton] and other players through this offseason already about ways we can get better as a team,” Twins President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey told reporters back in November at the GM meetings. The answer was in response to a report that Buxton’s loyalty to the Twins may waiver if he felt they were entering a rebuild, as Minnesota’s behavior during last season’s trade deadline suggested. Falvey went on to insist that the team intends to add, not subtract, and it seems the term rebuild is taboo among Twins spokespeople.

Falvey is lying. I say this with no inside information, malice, or even judgement. MLB organizations operate within a system where this particular lie is not only acceptable, but also encouraged. Because “we’re not rebuilding; we’re trying to get better” is a corollary to a larger lie — that all teams are trying their hardest to win.

What is the truth, but a lie agreed upon? — Friedrich Nietzsche

Though this quote is often attributed to him, Nietzsche never actually said it. However, it does seem to offer a reasonably accurate distillation of his beliefs. And if we all agree that he did say it, then by his own logic, it must be true. Likewise, teams have decided to hold to the line that they’re all trying to win, and since they’ve all agreed, it falls to fans to take the lie as truth, along with all the subsequent lies necessary to support the original lie.

For example, after former Twins catcher Christian Vázquez hit free agency after a 2025 season in which he and Ryan Jeffers split time behind the dish fairly evenly, Falvey claimed that the plan moving forward would be for Jeffers to take on more of a full-time starting role, with Alex Jackson (newly acquired in a trade with the Orioles) serving as a more traditional backup. Instead, the Twins have signed Victor Caratini to a two-year deal worth a total of $14 million.

In fairness, Falvey may have fully believed his original assertion about finally letting Jeffers take over as the club’s starting catcher after spending the last three seasons fully healthy (aside from a concussion last September) but with a part-time workload. Maybe Caratini simply fell into Minnesota’s metaphorical lap. But later on, in those same comments about Jeffers from December, Falvey also said, “We know where he’s at in terms of service time, approaching free agency.” Jeffers becomes a free agent following the 2026 season and was a rumored trade target for the Phillies prior to their reunion with free agent catcher J.T. Realmuto.

With the decision to bring in Caratini, when considered alongside the signing of first baseman and frequent trade deadline acquisition, Josh Bell to a one-year deal (Minnesota’s only other notable move this winter), it seems that Falvey’s offseason plans are more about maintaining the flexibility to trade big league talent than acquiring big league talent to get better in the here and now.

Bell was traded for the first time in his career following the 2020 season, and was subsequently moved at three consecutive trade deadlines starting in 2022. As Michael Baumann noted in his write-up of the signing, Bell is a player with characteristics that are easy to dream on, leading six teams (so far) to believe they might be the one to finally unlock his full potential. And if not, well they can probably trade him for a prospect or two.

With Jackson in the fold, Jeffers with just one year of team control remaining, and Caratini on a two-year contract, come July the Twins could trade whichever of Jeffers or Caratini yields the best offer from a contender in need. And with Caratini able to play some first base, utilityman Kody Clemens still on the roster, and Eric Wagaman in the mix following a trade with the Marlins earlier this month, Bell is certainly more expendable should a worthwhile suitor come a-calling.

Overall, Minnesota’s offseason feels primarily centered on making sure it has enough playable depth at the big league level to cover innings while it continues to stockpile future big leaguers on the farm. Meanwhile, building a contender around Buxton is a secondary concern at best. But even though Falvey is obviously lying about the team’s intentions, it’s the sort of lie baseball’s ecosystem has agreed is necessary. Would it really benefit Jeffers or Caratini or Bell to hear their team’s POBO say he’s hoping to ship them out in a few months? Buxton might appreciate a more honest approach, but nothing is preventing him from privately recognizing what’s happening around him; acknowledging the lie publicly would only make his life messy and uncomfortable for as long as he remains with the organization. And despite the deceitful marketing of their offseason, the Twins should see improved offensive production at both first base and catcher this season.

Ty France covered most of the reps at first base in 2025 prior to his deadline trade to the Blue Jays, with Clemens taking over in the aftermath of the teardown. Both were below-average hitters and middling defenders, so however the playing time split works out between Caratini and Bell at first base, they’re likely to offer a significant upgrade on offense, albeit with somewhat of a downgrade on defense. Behind the plate, Caratini is replacing a defense-first catcher in Vázquez, whose framing took enough of a step backward last year to make it impossible to justify his 55 wRC+. Caratini is typically a slightly above-average framer, but he’s coming off a down 2025. Though depending on the downstream effects of the new automatic ball/strike challenge system, and the future of ABS more broadly, that may start to matter less and less.

Digging deeper on Caratini’s offense, the switch-hitter managed to post a wRC+ over 100 just once in his first six seasons of big league playing time. But then he topped the mark in each of his two years in Houston, hitting for a 113 wRC+ in 2024 and a 104 wRC+ in 2025. Catchers who hit above league average remain an endangered species, and Caratini’s ascendance into the exclusive club seems like the result of meaningful improvements to his swing. He’s supplemented strong plate discipline with increased bat speed from the right side and a slightly more open stance and shorter swing when batting left-handed. The changes improved his timing and contact quality, allowing him to connect with the ball as his swing is on the upper cut, leading to a more optimal attack angle and direction, and translating to more balls pulled in the air. More pulled balls in the air means more slugging. And though certain players enjoy hitting at Daikin Park, Caratini hit better on the road in both seasons with the Astros, and he’s likely to prefer Target Field’s less spacious power alley in right-center.

Though Caratini is a solid addition to the roster, it’s still disappointing to watch the Twins go from winning the division in 2023 and finishing above .500 in 2024 to acquiring players simply to have talent to trade away at the deadline. Falvey is operating under particularly difficult constraints with the team’s ownership situation in flux over the past couple of years, going from a potential sale of the team to instead adding two new limited partners to an ownership group that was previously a family operation. He’s got new stakeholders to please and a new power dynamic to navigate. Perhaps given those constraints, it’s unfair to characterize Falvey’s comments as lies. Perhaps the words of another great philosopher are more appropriate.

“I’m not lying. I’m just writing fiction with my mouth.” — Homer Simpson

And sometimes fiction provides a necessary escape from reality. Philosophers differ on the specifics of whether it is OK to lie and which types of lie are permissible. Some, like Plato, are open to the notion of acceptable lies, while others, like Aristotle, are absolutists in their stance that all lies are reprehensible. But even Aristotle conceded that edge cases exist where lying is tolerable. However, given that the Twins were good a mere two years ago, Falvey shouldn’t be moonlighting as a fictional storyteller. Rather, ownership and Falvey could have worked together to make him a more palatable type of liar. I’ll kick it back to Nietzsche to explain.

“The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.”

I can’t fully confirm the veracity of this quote either, but I stand by the sentiment. If the Twins are going to lie, they should turn the lies inward in a way that leads them to deny conventional thought and enact bold strategies in the name of winning, as opposed to this milquetoast brand of lying that convinces no one and enforces the notion that it’s OK for professional sports teams not to even bother trying to win for a few seasons — so long as they don’t actually admit that’s what they’re doing.