Luke Voit has been a member of the Brewers organization for just a few weeks. The former home run leader signed a minor league deal a couple weeks ago, getting an opportunity to audition for a roster spot early in Spring Training.
The Brewers will have to make that call relatively early into exhibition play. Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that Voit would be able to opt out of the deal next Thursday if he’s not added to the big league roster. According to Sherman, Voit’s deal would come with a $2MM base salary if he makes the MLB club.
While that’s far from an exorbitant sum, it remains to be seen whether Milwaukee feels there’ll be sufficient at-bats for Voit to warrant a spot. Keston Hiura is on hand as an in-house option with a similar power-oriented skillset from the right side. Hiura has run exorbitant strikeout tallies over the past few years but he’s flashed impact power upside. The former ninth overall pick connected on 14 home runs with a quality .222 ISO (slugging minus batting average) in just 80 games last season.
Voit and Hiura are seemingly jockeying for reps as a right-handed complement to lefty-swinging first base/DH options Rowdy Tellez and Jesse Winker. Both Hiura and Voit have actually fared worse against left-handed pitching than righties over the course of their careers. Tellez and especially Winker have had more traditional splits, however, with both handling righties better over the years. While neither Voit nor Hiura has functioned as a traditional lefty masher, they each offer some righty pop to help balance the order.
Adding some power from that side of the dish was apparently a goal for Milwaukee. To that end, Sherman writes that the Brew Crew had checked in with free agent catcher Gary Sánchez earlier in the offseason. Milwaukee subsequently acquired their new backstop, William Contreras, from the Braves as part of the three-team Sean Murphy trade. That swap landed the Brewers five seasons of control over a player they hope to be the long-term answer behind the dish at the cost of center field prospect Esteury Ruiz, who went to Oakland.
Sánchez still has yet to put pen to paper despite reports of interest from the likes of the Angels and Giants in recent months. He’s one of the top unsigned hitters available. Milwaukee no longer has a need for MLB catching, as the duo of Contreras and Víctor Caratini will handle the load. Milwaukee brought in Payton Henry from the Marlins in a low-profile trade to serve as the #3 option. There’s no indication Sánchez remains on the radar as a result, though he could be of interest to any number of teams if he’s willing to take a minor league deal at this stage of the winter.
A bat-first catcher for most of his time with the Yankees, Sánchez flipped the script to an extent during his lone season in Minnesota last year. He hit 16 homers but with a fairly modest .205/.282/.377 overall showing through 471 trips to the plate. That was among the worst full-season offensive performances of his career but he received roughly average grades for his pitch framing and ball-blocking from Statcast.
While Sánchez’s destination is still to be determined, there are no such questions with starter Wade Miley. The Brewers brought him back on a one-year, $4.5MM guarantee shortly after the calendar flipped to 2023. It’ll be season number 13 for the 36-year-old southpaw, who acknowledged he thought at points this offseason his career might be over.
“I was so unsure at the end of the year for what was next,” Miley told Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer. “I wanted to get my shoulder healthy. I did a little program right after the season was over and it didn’t feel good at all. I did it for four weeks and it was awful. That’s when I went into – I wouldn’t call it depressed mode, but I was like ’it’s not worth it.’ At that moment, I was like, ’I think we’re done.’ Me and my wife talked, and I said, ‘I think this might be it.’”
Miley is coming off a season in which shoulder issues kept him to only nine appearances with the Cubs. Fortunately, he says his arm feels good after an offseason of rest and he felt comfortable giving things another go. Miley figures to take a back-end rotation role in Milwaukee, offering some veteran depth behind Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta and Eric Lauer. That takes on added importance for the Brew Crew after spring injuries to Aaron Ashby and Jason Alexander have thinned the depth beyond Miley and #6 starter Adrian Houser. As for his long-term outlook, Miley told Nightengale “I guess as long as (teams) keep calling, I’ll keep playing.”
It’s pretty surreal that someone like Sanchez is still unsigned. I realize that metrics for determining value have shifted a ton over the years and just because a player like Sanchez probably would’ve been signed in a different era, I understand why he hasn’t been so far.
It’s a business and a data driven business at that, not a charity, but he’s theoretically in his prime or the equivalent of most players’ prime years so you’d think someone would take a flyer on him even now.
0.9 WAR, average defensive metrics, modest 20 HR power…. a lot of other players with similar make up’s and track records have still signed market average deals.
$2M base salary, $3M buyout on an $8M mutual option or something like that sounds reasonable.
The only teams who would realistically sign Sanchez are gonna be teams who aren’t guaranteed contenders but would be willing to spend on a diamond in the rough… Cleveland comes to mind. Reminds me of when Swisher was a free agent and there was no obvious landing spot or market for him and Cleveland signed him to a pretty good deal despite there being very little to no competition…. except Cleveland signed Zunino.
So yeah… Where or where could Sanchez land or does he go to Japan or Korea?
The appeal to Sanchez would be as a Catcher can hit 30 HR’s. Problem is he’s a lousy Catcher and the power numbers have declined in each of the last 3 (full) seasons.
It is an odd group of remaining free agents. Sanchez, Jurickson Profar, Jose Iglesias, Yuli Gurriel, Zack Brittan, Dylan Bundy, Michael Pineda, Chris Archer and others that could help ballclubs but doesn’t seem like they will get a chance anytime soon
I think the eye test demonstrates Sanchez has been well below average defensively among starting catchers. He is a good enough hitter to be a backup or third catcher that is bat first.
Sanchez is such an enigma. He had so much promise but couldn’t sustain his early success. And, once teams figured out how to pitch to him, he was never the same.
He should bite the bullet and sign a minor league contract, play on a AAA team this year and try to remake himself as a right fielder.
AAA deal with opt out dates. Teams want at least a defensively competent #2 catcher. At this point he’s at best a #3 who will have to wait for an injury.
The rules changing to increase stolen bases definitely hurt him.
At one point in time his bat made up for his defensive shortcomings. I think those days are over.
He is playing in the WBC, which gives him a bit of an audition for teams without having to sign a minors deal.
His arm is actually the one plus defensive tool he has. The problem is everything else.
My mistake then.
TBH, would rather have Luke Voit on the Mets over Darin Ruf
Voit is too good of a hitter to not be on a major leauge roster. He’ll get a shot somewhere.
He just had his healthiest year if his career and it resulted in the worst production of his career. Like Sanchez, it will be a minor league deal until someone has an injury. Book it.
Sanchez might…might…at this point hit you 30 HRS. But you also have to deal with the fact he’s perpetually overweight, he strikes out a ton, he can’t catch a cold behind the dish, he’s a base clogger and occasionally has a real bad attitude. Apart from this…he’s a gem.
If Voit were to make the club, what would they do with Hiura? I don’t see the club carrying 3 1B/DH types to go along with Winker. They also have Mike Brosseau who will play one of the corners/DH against lefties. That’s too many spots for players with similar skill sets and positional flexibility. Will they just waive him?
can Hiura still play 2B or is that totally out of the question at this point? Might see the point in keeping that 3rd 1B/DH type if that guy can play passable 2B in a pinch
sign and trade brewres MO
Just a bad fit for their needs at the MLB level, and if he doesnt want to go to AAA, then he shouldn’t have signed with a team that already has 2-3 dh/1b platoon types. He probably isn’t going to provide much production in general, but he needs to sign somewhere with a clearer path to playing time if he wants to establish any real value.
He isn’t just auditioning for the Brewers but for 29 other teams as well. It’s common practice for players signing minor league deals to ask for and be given their release if another club is willing to give a major league contract. Just like Carpenter did with Texas last year when the Yankees wanted him.