The Yankees announced Thursday that they’ve selected the contract of minor league outfielder Trey Amburgey to the Major League roster and reinstated lefty Zack Britton from the 10-day injured list. In a pair of corresponding roster moves, both Nestor Cortes Jr. and Wandy Peralta were placed on the Covid-19-related injured list. The team has not provided further updates on their status. Players on the Covid list do not count against a team’s 40-man roster, so no further corresponding move was necessary to place Amburgey on the 40-man.
Amburgey, 26, was the team’s 13th-round pick back in 2015. He’s never been considered one of the organization’s top prospects and posted mostly average results while rising through the minor league ranks. However, his 2019 campaign in Triple-A was a bit above the league average, and his second go-around at that level has been enormously productive.
Through 161 plate appearances so far in 2021, Amburgey has tattooed Triple-A pitching at a .312/.379/.582 clip. He’s connected on seven home runs, 15 doubles and a triple while walking at a healthy 9.9 percent clip and fanning in 24.2 percent his plate appearances.
Amburgey has played the outfield corners exclusively so far in 2021, but he does have 753 innings of center-field work under his belt — including 122 innings there back in Triple-A during the 2019 season. That makes him an option to work into the mix at multiple spots, as the Yankees have received generally poor collective output from both left field (.232/.297/.363, 83 wRC+) and center field (.182/.289/.312, 71 wRC+) so far in 2021. Right fielder Aaron Judge has been characteristically excellent, both with the glove and the bat, but the outfield group as a whole has been a key factor in the Yankees’ underwhelming 2021 campaign.
The 33-year-old Britton, meanwhile, will return from his second IL stint of the season — the second a much shorter one than the first. Britton was out from Opening Day through June 12 due to arthroscopic surgery that removed bone chips from his left elbow. He tossed just 4 1/3 innings upon his activation before going down with a hamstring strain that sidelined him another three weeks.
Britton’s return will come at a time when the Yankees’ other high-priced bullpen lefty, Aroldis Chapman, has been melting down at the most alarming rate of his career. Chapman carried a near-immaculate 0.39 ERA through early June before imploding in a four-run loss to the Twins at Target Field in which he failed to retire any batters. He’s now allowed runs in five of his past ten outings, including three of his past four, and pitched to a disastrous 18.90 ERA over those ten outings. Since that June 10 meltdown, Chapman has yielded 14 earned runs on 15 hits and 11 walks in just 6 2/3 frames. Four of those hits have left the yard, and he’s also hit a batter. He’s faced 46 batters and allowed 27 of them to reach.
Given those struggles, it wouldn’t at all be a surprise to see a returning Britton and the steadier Chad Green supplant Chapman in high-leverage and/or save situations. (Although Green himself just imploded for four runs in his final first-half outing.) Britton, of course, has more closing experience than just about any “setup” man around the game, having racked up 153 saves in his career — including an AL-best 47 back in 2016 with the Orioles.
The Yankees are turning to Amburgey and Britton at a pivotal time for the club. They’ll face the division-leading Red Sox in eight of their next ten games, with the only reprieve coming via a two-game set against the Phillies.
The Yankees’ season in many ways hangs in the balance; they’re already eight games behind Boston in the AL East and four and a half games back in the AL Wild Card chase. A strong showing in these eight games could rally the club and push the front office into buy mode with the July 30 trade deadline looming, but if the Sox are able to topple the Yankees in the majority of these eight games, it could serve as a proverbial nail in the coffin of the 2021 Yankees, who’d have some interesting veterans to peddle in advance of the deadline.
When they going to call up hoy jun park up damn it
I expect they’re waiting for an injury in the infield. If they bring Park up, it means they have to move on from Odor. Losing Odor isn’t the end of the world but it is permanent and supposedly they don’t think Park’s numbers will continue in the bigs. Not saying I disagree with you, it’s just what I think is happening.
Finally Trey gets an opportunity it’s about time. I hope he makes the most of his opportunity.
Odor playing pretty well for us, actually: 9 jacks, a .718 OPS, & +5 OAA. He’s contributing.
Those numbers are roughly league average. He also has a below league average OPS+ and doesn’t provide anything more than average defense. Just a very meh player
The most important factors in keeping Odor is he is left handed which the Yankees are mostly bereft off, and Texas is paying him which means someone would claim and the Yankees know it
I don’t care for OPS+ for a multitude of reasons. League average OPS = .708. & his OAA is 3rd in MLB. He has done ok.
A very meh player that brings a swagger back to the team which is SORELY needed…..not a fan of his baseball stats, but his bench and clubhouse presence is necessary right now!
While he hasn’t been terrible, to say that his “swagger” is needed right now, doesn’t really mean anything. Maybe he IS a great teammate…..but he’s a league average hitter at best, and other than the occasional dinger, he just doesn’t offer much as a player. They need W’s. That’s it. It’s the Yankees. Brian Cashman would kill to have zero swagger, and a 5 game winning streak.
Some type of swagger is needed, though. This team seems to be waiting around for their on-paper talent to catch up with them on the field. It’s almost as if they can’t believe they are this bad since everyone, including many of the experts who said they were good but are now walking back on this statement, told them so. They seem to expect to good.
So, they need to start playing as if they are mad at the world. Odor has this but the rest don’t seem to.
OPS+ over rates power relative to the ability to get on-base. There’s zero reason you should just add SA to OBP without scaling one of them. It’s utterly arbitrary. It’s like adding hits to RBIs to come up with some magic number that doesn’t mean anything.
Guess I don’t understand what “SA” is.
But.
Here are some reasons why I feel OPS+ is misleading:
– “Park adjustment” varies year to year & contains more caveats than a physics problem
– disagree that an HBP is more valuable than a BB due to “sequencing”
– it’s specificity. Odor – for example – is exactly 4% below league average, uh? Don’t buy that.
– all the park adjusted stats are really just dumbing down all stats. I get it. 100 is average blahfeckingblahblahblah. Look at league average OPS & extrapolate from there. Don’t fear math
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Those are some good reasons IMO. I have more. But it’s a highly flawed stat & I’m not one of those guys freaking out over batting average, or whatever.
Edit: I think “SA” meant slugging percentage. Correct?
I agree that a HBP isn’t as valuable as a BB, but it’s weighed because BB happen more often than HBP.
That’s not my understanding of it, @mlb1225.
The explanation given – that I’ve read – is based on the assumption that HBP’s generally occur at more inopportune times for a pitcher. Ergo: “sequencing”.
Which is dumb. 0-4 with a BB is “less” valuable than 0-4 with an HBP.
I assume this is just a brief cup of coffee for Amburgey for now but it will be interesting to see what the Yankees do if he plays well. Maybe they can throw in the husk of either Andujar or Frazier in a potential trade to clear a spot on the 40 man
Happy Trey is coming up. No one has really discussed his success in the minors this year except for everyone in the comments section saying… “I talked about him.”
Not the Yankees year–a little bad luck, a lot of injuries and underperformance. Staying under the CBT and not wasting prospect capital might be the smartest move.
Also RIP Dick Tidrow.
Behind the scenes, old Dick Tidrow had an amazing run in the major leagues. One of my first baseball cards as a kid, that I can remember too. His name made me chuckle when I was a kid……..and as a 39 year old.
“Trey Amburgey” is the answer to the legendary question, “What do they call a Whopper in Paris?”
Well played sir.
why they had a guy like Amburgey on AAA ?
Never had a great K/BB% and his BABIP is pretty high but if he can get a quick jump on things it may be worth sending Andujar and/or Frazier to AAA to re-establish themselves.
Yankees could of even called up Allen or Brito to add more team speed and another lefty bat
This should of been the time for Florial to seize the moment but he’s flopped like most Yankees hyped prospects.
Loaisiga should be the closer at this point.
I think he would be if he hadn’t gone on the IL. Has a better arsenal then Green. It would be nice if Chapman fixed himself in the 2nd half so he could be a trade piece on the off-season (assuming his NTC can be overcome) and invest it into the rotation. Losiaga, Green and Britton for 8th and 9th innings would be fine for 2022.
Trey isn’t anything special. The guy strikes out a ton and is really overhyped.
He hasn’t been hyped at all.
If Trey strikes out a lot he will fit great with rest of the team.
I’m glad he’s finally getting his chance to play in the in the big leagues. I wish him all the luck in the world and hope he becomes a great Yankee.