The Brewers are designating first baseman Luke Voit for assignment, tweets Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Meanwhile, reliever Alex Claudio has been outrighted to Triple-A Nashville after going unclaimed on waivers, according to Adam McCalvy of MLB.com (Twitter link).
Voit’s time in Milwaukee likely comes to a close after 22 games. The Brewers signed him to a minor league deal over the offseason. He opted out of that contract towards the end of Spring Training but quickly re-signed on a major league contract with a $2MM base salary for time spent in the majors. Voit was slated to pair with the lefty-swinging Rowdy Tellez at first base and designated hitter.
The 32-year-old didn’t find his footing in Milwaukee. He didn’t connect on a single home run in 74 trips to the plate. Voit hit .221/.284/.265 overall, striking out 27 times while drawing four walks. While he’s always had a fair amount of swing-and-miss, his 36.5% strikeout rate in this year’s small sample would be the worst of his career. He was eventually shelved by a neck strain on May 15.
In conjunction with Voit’s IL placement, Milwaukee signed Darin Ruf to a major league deal. Also a veteran right-handed hitter at the bottom of the defensive spectrum, Ruf looked like a curious fit on a club that already employed Voit. It seemed likely the Brewers would part ways with one of that duo once Voit were healthy. They’ll stick with Ruf, who’s hitting .250/.348/.300 over his first nine games.
Voit’s stock has fallen swiftly over the past three seasons. He was an impact power bat for a time with the Yankees, leading the majors with 22 home runs during the shortened 2020 campaign to secure a ninth-place finish in AL MVP balloting. Voit had hit .263/.378/.464 over a full season the year prior, so that production wasn’t a one-off product of the truncated schedule. He battled various injuries in 2021, though, leading the Yankees to bring in Anthony Rizzo from the Cubs at the trade deadline.
With Voit more or less displaced in the Bronx, the Yankees dealt him to the Padres coming out of the lockout. He hit .225/.317/.416 for San Diego and was packaged to the Nationals in the Juan Soto blockbuster. He slumped on a rebuilding Washington club and was non-tendered. This year’s struggles bring his cumulative batting line to .229/.311/.399 in just shy of 900 plate appearances over the past three seasons.
The Brewers have a week to explore the trade market. If they can’t find a taker, they’ll place Voit on waivers. He surpassed five years of major league service this season. That gives him the right to decline a minor league assignment in favor of free agency while still collecting his entire guaranteed salary if he goes unclaimed.
Claudio has that opportunity as well. The veteran southpaw was designated for assignment on Saturday. He’d pitched only once since his contract was selected a month ago. The 31-year-old had worked to a 2.63 ERA over 13 2/3 innings with Nashville before being called up.
Thank god…he sucks
To bad his contract can’t be voited.
)::Oo
I’d like to voit him back in.
I would have voited down your comment, but I just couldn’t avoit liking it.
Many readers currently wish they had aVoited this entire thread… but I’m not one of them.
Word on the street is that he is about to sign a minor league contract with the Whitesox. Stay tuned
What street, Sesame?
Gabby Street.
But not Gene Alley, Lois Lane or Dusty Rhodes.
He really does fit the CWS minors deal profile – player who has bounced around a lot in recent years and just can’t seem to put it together.
You guys are right. An unsigned player released, then re-signed to the same team that released him, and now a dfa. Perfect profile for the Sox. The only problem is, they signed so much crap this off-season, there might not be enough room for him on the Sox’ minor league teams, including the one that plays in Chicago.
Anyone who doesn’t understand what we’re talking about only needs to understand one thing. CWS brought back Billy Hamilton for a second tour, and we all know the Billy Hamilton story. They called him up, he got injured, and the organization is very much looking forward to his return. That speaks volumes of the current state of the Sox.
Come back to the Pads! He’d hit better than half the team is right now
I doubt that. He looks pretty bad.
Depends how you look at it. If another team needed someone for a platoon against RHP, he’s hit them just fine this year. The Brewers signed him, had all the stats of previous years to tell them he hits RHP better, and yet apparently signed him to platoon against LHP, which he doesn’t hit well.
As a Brewers fan, I’ll say what others may not, but the Brewers just didn’t play him the way they should’ve. His failed time in Milwaukee is on management’s end more than his, as he hit .343 against RHP. He hit .091 against LHP. He’s repeatedly shown that LHP is his weakness.
I don’t expect him to hit .343 all year for anyone who signs him and does platoon him the right way. But they’ll get far better results than the Brewers did if they actually platoon him the right way. He started 5 games against RHP and 12 against LHP. Wasn’t hard to see he wasn’t going to perform well when he was starting games in the wrong side of a platoon over double the amount of times of the way he should’ve been played.
I retract my “Welcome to Pittsburgh” comment on the Jesus Aguilar post and would like to apply it here instead.
Seems you aren’t right about much, considering Whitaker was snubbed by the HOF committee just last November
Saying it doesn’t make it true
Soon to be claimed by the Padres to be their catcher.
The Mets should drop Vogelbach and Canha and sign Voit and bring up Mauricio
Voit is no better than Vogelbach.
weight watchers?
Ruf and Voit. Is there any difference?
Next move…DFA Ruf and sign Aguilar. Again, the same player
Voit for Aguilar straight up
All Voit and/or Aguilar have to do is somehow get on the Giants’ roster. Then just have one monster game where they go like 5-5 with multi HRs and win the game (meaningless game, but not important), and the fan base will love them forever. Lest any SF fans take exception to this, that’s exactly what happened with Alex Dickerson, and he was on that roster WAY longer than he should have been…..because of that one game.
They also think Brandons Crawford & Belt are HOFers.
Maybe he should go back to the Yankees to reclaim some of that magic.
Voit, Hosmer, Hicks….all available.
With good reason
expansion team?
Voit, Hicks, Sanchez, Frazier, Andujar — interesting few weeks for these former Yankee castoffs
Voit got Ruf’d up
Soyonara to MLB and say hello to Japan or Korea
Not shocking. I was a big Voit booster early on but I saw after more research that even in his best seasons his peripherals were terrible and it was patently obvious he had almost no defensive value.
I hope he puts it together or gets a second chance in Korea or Japan or somewhere, but I think his MLB career is over.
Look, he’s earned almost $13.5M (pre-taxes and agent fees) in his short MLB career. $7-$8M post career earnings is a perfectly fine nest egg to move forward with- heck he might still get another few million if he goes overseas and is successful in an international league.
Voit would put up video game numbers in Korea.
Only if the video game is Donkey Kong.
Or BurgerTime.
Phillies?
Nah. He’s not better than Bohm, Clemens, Sosa…etc and none of those guys are great.
He was fun to watch and a good fit in SD. Every time he swung it looked like he was going to hit it 900 feet. But they all seemed to die on the track. Got caught up in the Soto saga. If he’s all swing and miss now maybe it’s time to cash in the chips…
Brought in to hit lefties (a big weakness of the Crew) and was 3 for 33 against southpaws. Also brought in for some HR power and was zero-for-whatever. You just can’t tie up a roster spot for somebody like that, and Ruf can’t be worse.
Rizzo hurt hisself yesterday…
Boone says he’ll be in the lineup on Monday.
Boone says a lot of things. They rarely turn out to be true.
Love his passion for the game – rooting for him for one more opportunity
Every day gets another chance. Claudio will be back. I agree that the signing of Ruff the crime dog was not good. I see him going pretty quick off the roster as well. We need an OF that can hit. Mr. #1 prospect needs to come up now! That is all you need to know!
He’s barely above league average at AA, probably not a good idea.
His unbuttoned shirt and oleaginous chest will be missed.
Like to see him back in the American League East where he obliterates the ball and should have signed in the first place. Ideally Tampa BaY!
He needs another shipment from his homeboy O’neil
Look at the bright side. He can now get together with his former teammate Hicks and both can watch the whole series of Twilight Saga!
Voit is now void. Replaced by a dog. Ruf Ruf!
Luke has been rendered null and Voit
Good, couldn’t stand looking at him in that uniform.
Brewers may not want to carry him through when trying to compete but seems like he was given up on. given his recent not bad play, someone will pick him up. Of course I might not be aware of something. Not that he is overwhelmingly good.. but seems like before the past 100games or so he was pretty decent.