May 24: The Yankees opted not to promote Hummel and granted him his release, reports Brendan Kuty of The Athletic. He’s again a free agent.
May 22: Utility player Cooper Hummel has triggered a release clause in his minor league deal with the Yankees, reports Joel Sherman of The New York Post. Triggering the clause gives the Yanks 72 hours to decide on whether to add Hummel to their roster, trade him or release him. Since he triggered the clause yesterday (Wednesday), the team will need to make their decision by some time on Saturday.
Hummel, 30, signed a minor league deal with the Yanks in April. He started the season on the Astros’ roster but came into this year out of options. He hit .316/.435/.447 during spring training but the Astros decided not to carry him on the Opening Day roster. He was designated for assignment, cleared waivers and elected free agency. That freed up him to sign with the Yankees.
He played in just three Triple-A games before landing on the minor league injured list with an unknown issue. He was reinstated from the IL on May 10th and has since appeared in seven more contests.
That doesn’t give the Yanks much to go on but Hummel has an impressive minor league track record on the whole. He has stepped to the plate 1,460 times at the Triple-A level from 2021 to the present with a 17.6% walk rate and 20.8% strikeout rate. His combined line of .284/.419/.475 translates to a 132 wRC+. He has done that while bouncing around the diamond, suiting up at catcher and the four corner positions. He also notched double-digit steal totals in both 2023 and 2024.
Despite doing all that fun stuff in the minors, he has only 235 major league plate appearances, most of which were with the Diamondbacks back in 2022. His .159/.255/.275 line in the majors is obviously far less enticing than his work on the farm.
The next few days will provide some clarity on whether the Yankees or any other club are willing to give Hummel some major league time. As mentioned, he is out of options but he also has just one year and three days of service time at the moment. That means he wouldn’t get to the two-year mark even if he were called up today. The Yanks or some other club could therefore keep him in the majors for the rest of this season and still have five seasons of club control after that.
Photo courtesy of Reinhold Matay, Imagn Images
Another 4A player who didn’t cut the cheese in major using his opt out who gonna end up signing minor league contract with different team..
Spring training # don’t mean anything period as pitchers are still getting there arms in shape and doesn’t take hitters long to be ready so teams should avoid spring training stats..
It might be time to eat some Hummel-pie.
A hot dog joke would have sufficed
🤣🤣🤣
Yawn, what else you got? Ahahahahaha!
Couldn’t trade him? Seems like a waste to just dump him.
Prolly wants in on the Red Sox first base competition….
Don’t surprised if the Brewers and Yankees line up with Payamps swap
There’s no place for him on the big league roster unless the Yankees demote Vivas who hit the decisive homerun in today’s 1-0 pitchers’ duel. And they won’t.
Might as well give him Pablo Reyes’ spot
I could see them flipping him into Reyes spot. Reyes hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory over the course of his journeyman career.
Reyes is way more versatile defensively and experienced. They need neither Reyes nor Hummel for their bats. I like Reyes for being Judge’s late-inning defensive sub in uneven games.
I don’t know Hummel but I’ve seen all I care to see of Reyes who gets exposed quickly if he plays. Bring back Horace Clarke ….
Bring back Angel Berroa before this guy
Bye-bye, we barely knew You. Yankees needs to call up Pereira to replace Reyes.
Mlb: Pereira can’t hit so no they shouldn’t call him up. If he’s going to learn (unlikely) he needs everyday ab’s. He can’t put the bat on the ball and seems like Florial 2.0 with worse D.
Mariners could drop Solano and try Hummel again if they are set at keeping their prospects with more playing time in AAA.
He would fit in with the pirates. Nearly full team of decent AAA players who haven’t shown MLB stuff (yet)