The Yankees announced Wednesday that veteran outfielder Randal Grichuk has been designated for assignment. His spot on the roster goes to top pitching prospect Elmer Rodriguez, whose previously reported promotion to the majors is now official.
Grichuk, 34, signed a minor league deal with the Yankees over the winter and made the roster despite a shaky spring performance. The 13-year veteran was brought in as a right-handed bat to provide some punch against lefties, ideally platooning with lefty-swinging Trent Grisham, but Grichuk hasn’t found his footing in a limited role. He’s taken 33 plate appearances and delivered a meek .194/.212/.323 batting line with 10 punchouts.
It’s been a tough couple of seasons for Grichuk, who posted a .228/.273/.401 line (82 wRC+) in 293 plate appearances between Arizona and Kansas City last year. However, he’s also not far removed from a 2024 campaign that saw him post a superlative .291/.348/.528 slash (139 wRC+) during his first season with the D-backs.
Grichuk had plenty of run as a low-OBP, power-focused regular with the Blue Jays earlier in his career. He’s a lifetime .250/.297/.464 hitter with 212 homers in the big leagues. Grichuk has long been a thorn in the side of left-handed pitchers, and as he’s aged into his 30s, he’s taken on a more limited platoon role. He didn’t hit lefties in his tiny sample with the Yankees, and he struggled against them in uncharacteristic fashion last year as well. Despite the recent downturn, however, he still carries a career .268/.318/.498 line against southpaws.
The Yankees will have five days to trade Grichuk, place him on outright waivers or release him. The latter option is likeliest. Any team to acquire Grichuk or claim him would be taking on the remainder of the prorated $2.5MM salary on his minor league deal. Given his tough start to the season and last year’s struggles, that seems unlikely. If he’s released, he’ll be able to sign with any club seeking some righty-hitting corner outfield depth. Grichuk does have 3677 career innings in center, but the vast majority of that work came earlier in his career; he’s played only 147 frames in center dating back to 2023 and hasn’t graded out as a clearly above-average defender there since 2019.
Today’s swap of Rodriguez for Grichuk balances out the Yankees’ big league roster. They’ve spent the past couple days playing with 14 position players and 12 pitchers while holding off on a decision regarding Giancarlo Stanton‘s IL status. The Yankees finally placed Stanton on the IL due to a low-grade calf strain last night and replaced him with utilityman Max Schuemann, who was recalled from Triple-A. Jettisoning Grichuk and bringing up Rodriguez again gives the Yankees 13 pitchers and 13 position players, putting their bullpen back at full strength and returning them to a four-man bench.
Randal’s reaction to getting DFA’d in favor of Elmer. “Oh, fudd”
Given the general age of MLBTRs followers I think most will get this joke, but it’s sad there is an entire gen that will not and the new loony toons cartoon is just not as good.
Screwy Rabbit!
Wabitt😂
Ha! Vewy funny! 🤣
Wheah is Wandal?
Getting dfa was one of the best things that ever happened to him
313 .353 .875 1.228
Sure Grichuk delivers a meek batting line. But one day he will inherit the earth.
313 .353 .875 1.228
That’s meek?
It’s about time!!! He should have never been on this roster. Let the Martian play! He proved himself in spring training.
He still can’t field or hit lefties and grichuk can, that’s why dude was here. Elmer will go down for volpe after this start or next and volpe will essentially take grichuk’s spot. Jasson will have to make an enormous splash to stay up when G is ready to return
Schuemann will go down when Volpe is ready and Rodriguez will make a couple starts until Rodon returns.
Schuemann has left the building😅
He was absolutely killing lefties at AAA before he got called up. How recently did you update your data before you posted “he still can’t”.
………by then Dominguez will be hitting .058 with no home runs and a stolen base.
so you’re saying he’s dangerous on the basepaths? Cool.
Free Spencer Jones!
Dumb Yankee fans want to bring up a Schwarber wannabe who’s hitting only .242 at Scranton with more strikeouts than base hits.
@chucky let me apologize on behalf of the casuals. Perpetually good teams have tons of casual fans that misrepresent the fan base. The only way Jones is up this year is a long term injury to a starting OF or maybe to ben rice with belli sliding to first. I don’t think the org sees Dominguez as more than a DH right now and Jones is supposed to be an above average outfielder with a cannon arm
You’re wrong about Jasson, right about Jones.
Who plays center when Grisham gets traded June 15th?
You think anyone is taking Grisham off their hands? Not with that salary unless Cashman covers 99% of it and asks for literally nothing in return
Chuck in todays game if you are a free agent those numbers will net you at least a 5 year 125 millionmillion dollar contract. As an added bonus you might get to bat leadoff.
He has a .902 OPS in AAA right now. Is that supposed to be bad?
To do what? Be a worse version of Grisham? Ok
Free Spencer Jones is probably how get other teams interested in acquiring him.
This guy was on borrowed time from day one. Reinforcements are coming. McMahon you’re on notice. Lombard at AAA now could be in the Bronx by July
I highly doubt the Yankees DFA McMahon with nearly $30MM still owed. I think the at least give him the rest of the year then reassess in the offseason. I also don’t think we see Lombard in the big leagues until September
He won’t be DFAd, but McMahon is tradeable if the Yankees eat half his contract.
0 chance McMahon is off the roster this season. It would take long term injuries to volpe and caballero to even think about seeing Lombard this season.
Lombard getting the aggressive promotion to AAA is a strong indicator that the Yankees expect him up later this year. He’ll be the long term SS but could also see time at 2B and 3B this year. Lombard’s plus speed and defense will make him a valuable utility player for the stretch run and postseason.
Wow lots of optimism😉but I like that👍
McMahon is tradeable if the Yankees take on part of his contract.
With McMahon guaranteed $30 Million and Volpe the organization’s designated Golden Child, Lombard is being showcased for a trade. Cashman knows how poor his bullpen is and that to go anywhere in October he’s going to have sell off his best and most talented prospects.
Brewer’s should grab him up ASAP. He will flourish there.
Hope he stays in the organization. Was enjoying watching the doubles he was hitting for the yanks the past week or so.
If he passes through waivers (which I imagine he will), he could theoretically accept an outright assignment to Scranton if he doesn’t have any major league interest, given that there are currently PAs available there while Dominguez is in the majors. More likely, he refuses the assignment and signs with another team. If there are no major league offers available, I suppose he could sign a minor league deal with the Yankees, with monthly opt-outs. But this is likely the end of the line for him and the Yankees.
Agreed…and seeing that his progress offensively has continued to the point his average is now well above Chisolm’s (and the buck 97 he’d been stuck at for weeks) probably safe to say the extra work with hitting coaches has really paid off. Now consistency and health down the long stretch are the keys. For these reasons I don’t see Mcmahon going anywhere as his stock still rises.
This dude could wind up in injury desperate Houston.
I mean, the Mets just kicked Tommy Pham to the curb and replaced him with Austin Slater. Grichuk wouldn’t be out of place in that mix.
Ultra – And Grichuk would have appeal to Mets fans…as an ex-Yankee. Though they replaced Pham with an ex-Yankee in Austin Slater.
I think the only thing which appeals to Mets fans at the moment is bloody violence against the front office.
For sure they’ll sink even lower if the fightin’s can claw their way back into a pennant race this season💪
Ultra – LOL. Totally meant to type “front office” instead of “fans”. Mets fans have the pitchforks ready for Stearns/Mendoza.
Since he’s batting below .200, there’s no question that the Mets are going to sign him.
He knows Bichette from their days in TOR. He can hold Bo’s hand while he cries about signing with the Mets.
Seems like a fit for the Cardinals at the moment.
Our hitting coach has helped a number of our guys cut down on strikeouts and find their swing.
And we could use some low-risk, outfield (corner), veteran depth with some pop. And might be a good throw-in trade piece at the deadline if he turns things around a bit.
Pozo’s spot on the roster doesn’t seem like it’s been very productive this season, so sending him down seems to make sense?
Yeah, with all due respect to the Cardinals and their nice start, I don’t really think that’s a postseason team, so churning through a couple veteran spare parts to see if any of them can earn an A ball pitcher or two in trade, isn’t an awful idea at all.
Retire
I wanted grichuk to stick as he was a solid pro. In 2 games watching the martial you can tell he is going to be good but he just isnt there yet. I think he needs to go down and literally hit 400 and then come back around late july. Who knows maybe the yankees trade deadline will be 1 relief pitcher or the additions of lombard, dominguez, jones, lagrange and elmer in place of mcmahon, blackburn escarra and goldy
@Dmac – There has to be a trade there between Yankees and Padres. Gil for relief pitching. Have always liked Jermiah Estrada but he is hurt: Bradgley Rodríguez is interesting but think Gil has to be worth more than a rookie reliever.
Cubs have a need for a SP like Gil, but they don’t really have spare bullpen arms. Maybe 2-3 position player prospects (Hartshorn, Ramirez, Triantos, Cepeda, Ayers & Snell).
Not sure i want to get rid of gil. 1 theyd be selling low right now. And to me lagrange could be your answer with weathers in the bullpen when rodon and cole come back. Lagrange could be a tanyon sturtze or even that young betances type an weathers could be a 6th to 7th inning guy.
Dombrowski PICK UP that phone
More millions wasted by the GM FOR LIFE. Why did he think he could get Grichuk to produce when the other 29 clubs said “no” all winter?
Was it just out of spite, trying to show up Dominguez? Well, The Martian went to AAA and lit it up.
How Cashman keeps his job remains one of baseball’s great mysteries.
Incredibly short sighted by Cashman.
There is a cost of adding Elmer to the 40 man, and even if he lights it up when he pitches (a lot to ask of a 22 year old who has averaged about 5 IP per start in only five AAA games), he’s going back to Scranton when Cole and Rodon return. Is it worth it for two or three starts?
They signed Grichuk so that Jasson could play every day at AAA, not sit on the bench for the Yankees. While Jasson will play most every day while Stanton is on the IL, he’ll be a little used bench player once Stanton returns (unless they send him down and call up Jones, which they probably should, as Jones is killing it at AAA despite all the Ks and as he’s 25, two years older than Jasson, it’s time to give him a shot in the majors, where his defense, base running and home run pop would seem ideal for a bench player).
Perhaps they’re hoping Grichuk accepts a minor league assignement and they can bring him back when Stanton is healthy? Wouldn’t it have been better to just make Grichuk the righty DH in Stanton’s absence and see if he produced with every day ABs? Otherwise, the Yankees will be playing Grichuk’s salary ($2.5 million) for him to play for some other team, even though job postings for righty platoon corner OF are decidedly down in the era of 13 pitcher rosters. The Jays could sure use him, but it’s not the best fit for him as they will likely keep him only until they get healthy. The Royals (who love guys making the minimum) would find him an improvement over Marte and Atlanta and even the Mets could probably use him.
How much are you willing to give up in dollars, player development and 40 man roster positions for (maybe) one or two wins?
I think you vastly underestimate the cost of a win for competitive teams. The young arms need shots in the big league to increase their trade values
Grichuk served his purpose while JDom was in AAA.
JDom shouldve never been in AAA.
Dude you did all that thinking but forgot caballero is trusted in the OF, volpe returning frees up cabby and even Rosario for any corner outfield duty in situations grichuk would’ve played
Yanks seem to be growing a pair this year.
Maybe he slapped Aaron Boone and told him to stop blowing bubbles like a 12-year-old?
Oh no wait, this is Grichuk not Pham
And now jasson dominguez was pulled for taking 1 off the elbow heading for a scan. Re sign grichuk let him DH get some at bats and see if he picks it up a bit over the next 2 weeks. Or is this the excuse to bring up dejong? The yankees have a ton of bodies with opt outs or mlb experience. Depth someone is going