Stephen Vogt

BIOGRAPHY

Stephen Vogt was born November 1, 1984, in Visalia, California. He is a catcher in the MLB.

Vogt attended Central Valley Christian Schools (CVC), where his father Randy was the coach of the school's baseball team, the Cavaliers. Randy had been coach of the team since 1998, when Vogt was in seventh grade and was the team's batboy. When Vogt reached high school, he played for the team himself, and during his four years there set CIF Central Section records for career walks (79) and consecutive steals (65), and second-best career marks for hits (160) and runs (147). In 2003 he was named the East Sierra League Most Valuable Player. Vogt graduated CVC in 2003, and as his senior year was concluding he received little interest from prospective college baseball teams, which he attributed in part to the small size of his school. He dreamed of playing baseball at Fresno State, where his father played, but the school did not recruit him. Vogt took part in showcases being put on by Baseball Factory, Inc., a specialist company in player development and college placement for baseball players, and during one of those showcases he was noticed by a recruiting coach from Azusa Pacific University, a small college in Azusa, California. The recruiting coach provided Azusa Pacific coach Paul Svagdis a tape of Vogt, and after watching Vogt take just three swings, Svagdis knew he wanted him on the team and contacted Vogt to recruit him.

In 2019, Vogt batted .467 in his first six games with San Francisco from May 3 to 10. He hit two triples against the Brewers on June 15, his only triples of the season. He was the first Giants catcher to record two triples in one game since Steve Nicosia in 1984, and just the third catcher from any team to do so in the previous eight years; it also marked the first two-triple game from any Giants player in three years. By June 17, Vogt was hitting .264 with a .783 OPS, which was among the best offense numbers for catchers on the season. Those numbers improved even further following the All-Star break, when Vogt was hitting .357 with a 1.223 OPS in 14 games between July 13 and 27. In his first 53 games of the season through July 22, Vogt had a .262 batting average, his highest since 2014, as well as career-highs in OPS (.844) and slugging percentage (.508). On August 9, Vogt hit a two-run home run 423 feet out of Oracle Park into McCovey Cove, the 79th "splash hit" by a Giant in the history of the park; he was the first Giant to hit one since Brandon Belt on May 15, 2018. Vogt hit a three-run home run in the eighth inning in a game against the Oakland A's on August 24, his first game played at Oakland Coliseum since leaving the team.