Cartaya was designated for assignment on January 3. Vasquez, who turned 20 in December, pitched in the Dominican Summer League in 2024.
The Dodgers on Thursday traded catcher Diego Cartaya to the Twins in exchange for minor league pitcher Jose Vasquez.
Cartaya, a two-time consensus top-100 prospect in baseball, was designated for assignment on Friday to make 40-man-roster room for newly-signed infielder Hyeseong Kim.
The Dodgers were carrying four catchers on the roster, including Cartaya, who used option years in each of 2023 and 2024. He was the low-man on the depth chart with Will Smith and Austin Barnes in the majors and Hunter Feduccia at the ready in Triple-A should a backup-catching need arise. Factor in the rise of Dalton Rushing, who could hit his way to the majors this season, and Cartaya’s chances of playing time in Los Angeles were highly unlikely.
Given that Cartaya will be out of options after 2025 and with a limited path to the majors this year, him getting cut could have been foreseen. Now, he’ll have a chance to turn things around after struggling to hit in the upper levels of the minor leagues the last two seasons.
Cartaya, signed out of Venezuela for $2.5 million in July 2018, was the Dodgers’ top prospect prior to the 2022 and 2023 seasons, was ranked among the top 55 prospects in baseball by each of Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, ESPN, FanGraphs, MLB Pipeline, and The Athletic in 2022. The next year, those six outlets all had Cartaya among the top 28 prospects in the sport, with Keith Law at The Athletic rating him No. 6 overall.
It just didn’t work out.
Cartaya hit .189/.278/.379 with a 71 wRC+ and 19 home runs in 93 games in Double-A in 2023, then hit .221/.323/.363 with a 85 wRC+ and 11 home runs in 95 games between Tulsa and Triple-A Oklahoma City in 2024, including just .208/.293/.350 with a 60 wRC+ in Triple-A.
He turned 23 in December.
Vasquez turned 20 in December and has yet to pitch stateside. The 6’4 right-hander had a 4.99 ERA in 30⅔ innings in the Dominican Summer League in 2024, with 45 strikeouts and 15 walks.
Minnesota signed Vasquez as an international free agent out of the Dominican Republic in December 2022.