Clayton Andrews Elects Free Agency
Yankees left-hander Clayton Andrews rejected an outright assignment to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in favor of free agency, the team announced. Andrews wasn’t claimed off waivers following his recent DFA. As a player who’s been previously outrighted earlier in his career (back in April by the Yankees), he had the right to decline a minor league assignment. He’ll now explore other opportunities around the league (though a new minor league deal with New York is certainly possible).
The 27-year-old Andrews appeared in one game with the Yankees this season and allowed three runs in just one-third of an inning. He’s been tagged for an unsightly 10 earned runs in a total of 3 2/3 MLB frames over the past two seasons between the Yankees and Brewers — his only big league work to date.
Andrews’ 2024 struggles extend beyond that brief time on the big league roster. He’s tossed 24 2/3 innings in Triple-A and been tagged for a 5.84 ERA with nearly as many walks (20.4%) as strikeouts (25.9%). That said, he pitched 57 innings of 2.53 ERA ball with a hearty 31.1% strikeout rate for the Brewers’ Triple-A club in Nashville as recently as last season.
Andrews has a 3.66 ERA in 91 career Triple-A innings and an overall 3.49 earned run average in parts of six minor league seasons since being selected in the 17th round by the Brewers back in 2018. Walks have always been an issue for the undersized (5’6″) lefty, but Andrews has fanned 29% of his Triple-A opponents and nearly one-third of his total minor league opponents since being drafted.
Yankees Outright Victor Gonzalez, Clayton Andrews
7:06pm: New York also outrighted lefty reliever Clayton Andrews, per the transactions log at MLB.com. The Yankees had designated him for assignment last week when they signed Tim Hill. Andrews, 27, has only made one big league appearance this year. He has logged 24 2/3 frames in Scranton, allowing a 5.84 earned run average. The former Brewer has managed solid strikeout and grounder rates but walked more than one-fifth of batters faced.
New York has outrighted Andrews twice this season. Players with multiple outrights have the ability to elect free agency instead of heading back to Triple-A. It’s not clear whether he will do so.
2:51pm: The Yankees announced Wednesday that left-hander Victor Gonzalez passed through outright waivers unclaimed and has been assigned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He was designated for assignment last week. The southpaw has enough big league service time to reject the assignment but not enough to retain the remainder of his $860K salary upon electing free agency, so he’ll likely accept the assignment.
Gonzalez, 28, came to the Yankees alongside minor league infielder Jorbit Vivas in an offseason trade that sent minor league infielder Trey Sweeney back to the Dodgers. His time on the big league roster didn’t go as hoped. While Gonzalez posted a solid 3.86 earned run average in 23 1/3 frames, he did so while issuing more walks (13.4%) than strikeouts (11.3%). He continued to post terrific ground-ball numbers (55.1%), but this is the fourth straight season his strikeout rate has dropped. His 93.3 mph average velocity on his once 95-mph sinker also marked a career-low.
Debuting with the Dodgers back in 2020, Gonzalez looked like a potential bullpen powerhouse. Armed with that then-95-mph bowling ball sinker, he pitched 20 1/3 innings of 1.33 ERA ball with an excellent 28.7% strikeout rate against a microscopic 2.5% walk rate — all while inducing grounders at a mammoth 69.2% clip.
Injuries have hobbled him since that debut and sapped his repertoire, however. He’s dealt with plantar fasciitis, knee troubles and most notably a bout of elbow inflammation that eventually led to arthroscopic surgery. In three and a half seasons since that outstanding debut effort, Gonzalez has combined for a total of 136 innings (majors and minors included).
Gonzalez was out of minor league options, so the Yankees had no choice but to designate him for assignment if they wanted the chance to send him to the minors. He’ll now head to Triple-A and try to earn another look later in the season. He’d need to be re-added to the 40-man roster for that to happen, of course. Failing that, Gonzalez will have the right to become a minor league free agent at season’s end, given his status as a player with three-plus years of service who was outrighted off a 40-man roster.
Soto: Plan To Address Contract “In The Offseason”
Juan Soto will be the top free agent in the upcoming class and is trending towards the largest contract in MLB history — assuming one counts the Shohei Ohtani deal based on its approximate $461MM net present value. There has never been much doubt that the 25-year-old superstar would test the market, even after Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner left open the possibility of discussing a midseason extension last month.
Soto implied as much this evening in a conversation with Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Asked by Heyman whether he expected the Mets to be involved in the bidding, Soto replied “we will see. In the offseason we will figure it out. I’ll let [agent Scott Boras] do his thing. We’re going to see.” The three-time All-Star followed up by speaking glowingly of his time with the Yankees.
Steinbrenner’s comments aside, the Yankees presumably haven’t been all that optimistic about keeping Soto off the market. GM Brian Cashman said in February that the team fully anticipated Soto would test free agency (link via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). The Yankees will certainly make a significant effort to keep him in the Bronx next winter.
Soto famously declined a 14-year, $440MM extension offer from the Nationals before Washington traded him in 2022. The Padres similarly expressed a desire to work out a long-term arrangement in the early portion of last offseason. That obviously didn’t materialize and he was traded again. There aren’t any publicly reported specifics on contract terms that either San Diego or the Yankees have floated. Heyman said last month (X link) that Soto had declined seven extension offers within the last five years. That has long made it seem like a foregone conclusion that he and his camp would take things to free agency.
He may well do so coming off the best season of his career. Soto hit his 19th home run of the season tonight and is on pace to top last year’s personal-high 35 longballs. He carried a .305/.431/.563 slash line into today’s game. That’d be the highest slugging percentage he’s posted in a 162-game schedule. It’d be the second-best on-base mark he has managed in a full season.
Yankees Acquire J.D. Davis
The Yankees announced this afternoon that they’ve acquired infielder J.D. Davis and cash considerations from the A’s in exchange infielder Jordan Groshans. Davis had been designated for assignment by the A’s earlier this week. The Yankees transferred right-hander Nick Burdi to the 60-day injured list in order to make room for Davis on the 40-man roster.
Davis, 31, signed with the A’s in late spring after the Giants released Davis during Spring Training in order to get out from under most of the $6.9MM salary he had been awarded in arbitration over the winter. He managed to secure a guarantee of just $2.5MM from Oakland, a far cry from his previously-awarded arbitration salary even after factoring in the roughly $1.1MM in termination pay he received from San Francisco.
After that late spring controversy, Davis went on to appear in 39 games with the A’s where he slashed a roughly league-average .236/.304/.366 in 135 trips to the plate while splitting time between first base, third base, and DH. While his offensive numbers this year leave something to be desired, Davis’s positional versatility and track record as an above-average hitter make him a perfect fit for the Yankees’ current needs.
The club lost starting DH Giancarlo Stanton to the injured list earlier today, and first baseman Anthony Rizzo was also placed on the shelf not long ago due to a fractured forearm. Rookie Ben Rice has scuffled a bit in his first few games replacing Rizzo at first base, while the club has no obvious alternative to Stanton as an everyday DH in-house. Even at third base, where the club is currently relying on the combination of Oswaldo Cabrera and DJ LeMahieu, New York has gotten a wRC+ of just 78 — this ranks second-worst of all AL third-base units, ahead of only the White Sox.
Enter Davis, who entered the 2024 season with five consecutive seasons of solid production with the Mets and Giants. Since the start of the 2019 season, Davis has slashed a solid .265/.349/.438 with a wRC+ of 118. While he’s struck out a 27.1% clip during that time, he’s walked at a healthy 10% rate while flashing 20-homer power. That sort of production would be a major upgrade for a Yankees club that has generally struggled to produce offense outside of the outfield this year even before losing Stanton for at least the short-term. Davis seems likely to slide into the everyday DH role for the Yankees while Stanton is unavailable, but could also spell Rice at first base against left-handed pitching and even contribute at third alongside LeMahieu and Cabrera.
On days where Davis is playing the infield, the Yankees could offer Aaron Judge or Juan Soto the opportunity to get a half-day of rest as a DH and improve the club’s outfield defense by inserting glove-first center fielder Trent Grisham into the mix. When Stanton eventually returns to reclaim regular DH, the Yankees could pick and choose from Davis, Rice, Cabrera, and LeMahieu based on how everyone is performingt. That being said, if Davis can even maintain his production as an Athletic in the Bronx he should be a shoe-in for at least semi-regular playing time around the Yankees infield even after Stanton’s eventual return.
In exchange for Davis’ services, the Yankees are sending Groshans to Oakland. The 24-year-old’s stint in the Yankees organization was a relatively brief one, as the club claimed him off waivers from the Marlins back in February. He was outrighted off their 40-man roster in early March and has struggled to this point in the 2024 season with a .232/.310/.281 slash line while playing all four infield spots in 50 games split between the Double- and Triple-A levels. That follows a similarly rough performance at Triple-A with Miami last year; in 528 plate appearances across 125 games in 2023, Groshans slashed a paltry .244/.339/.330 with just six home runs.
Despite Groshans’ struggles over the past two seasons, it’s not hard to see why the A’s would be willing to give the youngster a shot. After all, the infielder was the 12th overall pick in the 2018 draft by the Blue Jays and received plenty of top prospect buzz earlier in his career, including a stint as a consensus top-50 prospect in the sport back in 2021. That pedigree combined with Groshans’ stronger numbers at the Double-A level earlier in his career provide some reason for optimism that he could contribute at the big league level at some point.
That possibility is surely an attractive one for an Oakland club that has struggled to find a consistent option at third base this year while cycling between Davis, Abraham Toro, and Tyler Nevin at the position. Toro will be out until at least the All-Star break recovering from a hamstring strain, leaving even more opportunity for Groshans to win some playing time at the hot corner.
Yankees Place Giancarlo Stanton On 10-Day Injured List
3:26PM: Stanton confirmed to Hoch and other reporters that he did get a PRP shot today, and estimated that he’ll spend about four weeks on the IL.
3:10PM: Stanton might receive a PRP injection but the strain is considered “mild,” Boone told MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch and other reporters. The Yankees don’t yet have a timeline on when Stanton might return to action.
9:42AM: The Yankees announced this morning that they’ve placed slugger Giancarlo Stanton on the 10-day injured list. Infielder Oswald Peraza was recalled to the big league roster in the corresponding move, as first reported by El Extrabase’s Daniel Alvarez-Montes last night.
Stanton, 34, departed yesterday’s game against the Braves in the top of the sixth inning after feeling tightness in his left hamstring while running the bases earlier in the game. Manager Aaron Boone indicated to reporters (including The Athletic’s Brandon Kuty) after the game that Stanton was scheduled to undergo tests today to determine the severity of the issue but noted that Stanton was in “good spirits” and that the club was hopeful the issue wasn’t too serious. The results of Stanton’s testing today are not yet known, although the club evidently believes that he’ll need to miss at least the next ten days before he can return to action. Being cautious with Stanton, who has a long history of lower half injuries throughout his career, is understandable given the risk of aggravating the hamstring further if he were to attempt to play through the injury.
Even so, it’s a frustrating turn of events for both Stanton and the Yankees given the veteran’s resurgence at the plate to this point in the season. Long one of the game’s most feared sluggers, Stanton posted relatively pedestrian numbers over the past two seasons, slashing just .202/.286/.442. That production was only good for a 103 wRC+ that’s essentially league average, and not particularly close to the value the Yankees were surely hoping to get from a full-time DH who they pay an average of $25MM to annually. The veteran’s production in 69 games this season has been far closer to what the Yankees are surely hoping for from him, as he’s impressed with a .246/.302/.492 slash line (126 wRC+) while crushing 18 home runs in just 281 trips to the plate.
New York will have to go without that strong production in the middle of their lineup for at least the foreseeable future, delivering another blow to an offense that has generally struggled to produce outside of star sluggers Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. Stanton shelved, it’s possible the Yankees could look to improve their outfield defense by placing Trent Grisham in center field, kicking Judge back over to his native right field while allowing Soto to move into a DH role. Grisham has struggled to a wRC+ of just 71 at the plate this year, though his quality work with the glove could still make him a more attractive option than more frequently relying on Oswaldo Cabrera (78 wRC+) or DJ LeMahieu (51 wRC+) outside of their current role splitting time at third base.
Taking Stanton’s place on the roster is Peraza, who has been sidelined for almost the entire season to this point due to a shoulder strain. In 28 games at the Triple-A level since returning from injury, Peraza has struggled to a .178/.313/.215 slash line that suggests he’s unlikely to be the solution for replacing Stanton’s production offensively, although the former consensus top-50 prospect would likely be the club’s best defensive option at third base and could free LeMahieu and Cabrera up for more frequent appearances at DH or first base, where youngster Ben Rice has been getting his first taste of big league action while Anthony Rizzo recovers from a fractured forearm.
Yankees Sign Chasen Shreve To Minor League Deal
The Yankees have signed left-hander Chasen Shreve to a minor league deal, as reported by Dan Martin of the New York Post. The southpaw had previously been pitching for the Rangers’s Triple-A affiliate in Round Rock on a minors deal but evidently opted out of that deal and returned to the open market at some point since his last appearance with them on June 14.
Shreve, who will celebrate his 34th birthday next month, is a veteran of ten MLB seasons who first made his big league debut with the Braves back in 2014. Shreve was swapped to the Bronx the following offseason alongside David Carpenter in exchange for Manny Banuelos. In parts of four seasons with the Yankees, Shreve pitched to a 3.92 ERA with a 4.99 FIP across 180 relief appearances. He was then packaged with right-hander Giovanny Gallegos and shipped to the Cardinals in exchange for first baseman Luke Voit partway through the 2019 season.
Since leaving the Bronx, Shreve has pitched for the Mets, Pirates, Tigers, and Reds at the big league level in addition to the aforementioned Cardinals. He’s posted a 4.26 ERA that’s exactly league average by measure of ERA+ over 169 innings of work, including a roughly league average performance with Detroit and Cincinnati last year. In 44 2/3 innings of work across 50 appearances, Shreve pitched to a 4.63 ERA and 4.28 FIP with a solid 23.3% strikeout rate against a 7.3% walk rate.
During his time on a minor league deal with Texas, Shreve has looked nothing short of dominant at Triple-A with a 1.61 ERA in 22 1/3 innings across 20 appearances while striking out 29.6% of batters faced. If he could recreate anything close to those numbers at the big league level he’d certainly be a welcome addition to the Yankees bullpen, which has lost Jonathan Loaisiga, Nick Burdi, and Ian Hamilton since the season began while also watching pieces like Caleb Ferguson and Ron Marinaccio struggle. It seems likely that Shreve will head to Triple-A for the time being, although it would hardly be a surprise to see the club call upon the veteran at some point in the near future, particularly after they recently DFA’d lefties Clayton Andrews and Victor Gonzalez earlier this week.
Yankees Interested In Garrett Cooper
The Yankees are showing interest in free agent Garrett Cooper, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. He hit the open market a week ago after being released by the Red Sox.
Cooper is looking for his third team of the 2024 campaign. He cracked the Cubs’ season-opening roster after signing a minor league contract. Cooper had a solid .270/.341/.432 showing across 12 games for Chicago, yet the Cubs designated him for assignment in April. The front office was evidently alarmed that he had struck out 13 times over his first 41 plate appearances. That skepticism seems to have been warranted, as Cooper struggled upon being dealt to the Red Sox in a cash trade.
Over 24 games with Boston, the righty-hitting first baseman slumped to a .171/.227/.229 batting line. He fanned 22 times while drawing only three walks in 75 trips to the plate. Boston elected to stick with Dominic Smith over Cooper once they welcomed Masataka Yoshida back from the injured list.
Whiffs have been an escalating problem for Cooper, who has struck out in 29.1% of his plate appearances since the start of last season. He owns a .242/.297/.395 line in 573 plate appearances across four teams over that stretch. Cooper had been a productive middle-of-the-order bat for the Marlins before that. Between 2019-22, he hit .274/.350/.444 and earned a nod to the ’22 All-Star Game.
Cooper is a former Yankee. New York acquired him from the Brewers back in 2017 when he was still in Triple-A. The Yankees called him up for 13 games late in the year before trading him the following offseason. They sent Cooper and Caleb Smith to the Fish for then-prospect Michael King — a move that worked out fairly well for both teams but eventually turned more clearly in New York’s favor.
The Yanks lost Anthony Rizzo for at least two months when he broke his arm in a collision at first base over the weekend. They called up Ben Rice in the wake of Rizzo’s injury. The 25-year-old has played in his first three big league contests, collecting two singles and a pair of walks in 11 plate appearances. Cooper could theoretically pair with the lefty-swinging Rice in a platoon, though the Yankees already have DJ LeMahieu as a potential right-handed complement.
GM Brian Cashman and the front office could explore the trade market for help at either corner infield spot over the next five weeks. It’s not easy to land a significant upgrade this far from the deadline, though, particularly with all but five teams still harboring some level of playoff aspirations. Cooper and José Abreu are options for teams looking for a stopgap at first base, though it’s not clear whether either player will command a big league contract offer. J.D. Davis is currently in DFA limbo with the A’s and will be traded or placed on waivers this weekend.
Yankees Designate Victor González For Assignment
The Yankees announced today that they have selected the contract of right-hander Phil Bickford, with left-hander Victor González designated for assignment in a corresponding move. Right-hander Yoendrys Gómez was also recalled, with a roster spot having been opened for him when right-hander Ron Marinaccio was optioned last night.
González losing his roster spot might come as a surprise, since his 3.86 earned run average on the year seems perfectly acceptable. But digging a little deeper, the numbers aren’t nearly as nice. He has issued 13 walks on the year compared to just 11 strikeouts, leading to respective rates of 13.4% and 11.3% that are both significantly worse than average.
His 55.1% ground ball rate is strong but his .149 batting average on balls in play is unsustainably lucky. His 5.93 FIP and 5.59 SIERA suggest that regression is coming, so perhaps the Yanks decided to quit while they’re ahead.
They will now have a week to trade González or pass him through waivers. Though his work this year has been fairly unimpressive, he could garner interest based on his past performance. He made 93 appearances for the Dodgers from 2020 to 2023, missing the 2022 campaign due to an elbow injury that required an arthroscopic debridement procedure. But in his time with the Dodgers, he had a 3.22 ERA, 23.2% strikeout rate, 8.4% walk rate and 58.1% ground ball rate.
He exhausted his final option year in 2023, which likely motivated the Dodgers to flip him to the Bronx in the offseason alongside Jorbit Vivas for Trey Sweeney. That inability to send him to the minors will limit interest from other clubs, but he can be controlled through 2026, which may tempt some club to give him a shot. Since his service time count is between three and five years, he would have the right to reject an outright assignment if he clears waivers, but doing so would mean forfeiting the remainder of his $860K salary.
His roster spot will go to another former Dodger in Bickford. The 28-year-old has had a strange offseason. Acquired by the Mets from the Dodgers in August of last year, he qualified for arbitration as a Super Two player.
He and the Mets didn’t agree to a salary, going to a hearing over a tiny difference. He and his reps filed at $900K while the club filed at $815K. He technically won that hearing but it wasn’t a real victory. Under the current CBA, arbitration salaries are guaranteed if the sides agree but not if there’s a hearing. The Mets would only owe him 45 days’ termination pay if they released him prior to Opening Day and they did just that.
That led to a minor league deal with the Yankees in early April, with a $1.1MM base salary in the majors, likely prorated based on when he was selected to the roster. Since signing that deal, he has tossed 27 2/3 Triple-A innings with a 2.93 ERA and 29.9% strikeout rate. His 10.3% walk rate is a tad high but the punchouts are clearly intriguing enough to get him back to the majors.
Those numbers are fairly comparable to his big league numbers in 2021 and 2022. Over those two seasons, he had a 3.85 ERA in 112 1/3 innings, striking out 27.8% of batters faced while walking just 7.3%. Last year, his strikeout and walk rates both moved in the wrong direction a bit to 25% and 12.8%, which led to his aforementioned transactions.
He is out of options and can’t be sent back down to the minors without first being exposed to waivers. But if he manages to stick on the roster, he can be controlled for three more seasons beyond this one.
Jasson Domínguez Expected To Miss About Eight Weeks
Yankees outfielder Jasson Domínguez is going to miss a lot time with an oblique strain. SNY relayed video on X of manager Aaron Boone discussing the issue, with the skipper saying Domínguez will miss “up to eight weeks” before he can play in games because the strain is “pretty significant.”
It’s yet another unfortunate setback for Domínguez, who arrived in the big leagues with such flair last year. With the Yankees playing out a lost season in 2023, the prospect was brought up as a September call-up, then went on to hit four home runs in his first eight games.
Unfortunately, he then required Tommy John surgery, which ended that exciting debut and put him on track for a challenging 2024. He began the season on the injured list while rehabbing from that surgery and was only reinstated last week. Since the Yankees have a solid big league outfield consisting of Juan Soto, Aaron Judge and Alex Verdugo, with Giancarlo Stanton in the designated hitter slot and Trent Grisham on the bench, Domínguez was optioned to get regular at-bats in Triple-A.
But this past weekend, just a few days after being reinstated from the IL, he was placed on the minor league IL with some side tightness. Now it seems he’s slated for another lengthy injury layoff, with the eight-week timeline set to take him into the middle of August.
It’s a rough blow for the Yankees on a number of fronts. In the short term, the big league outfield is in good shape, as mentioned. But if any of their major league outfielders should suffer an injury, this will leave their outfield depth thin. Everson Pereira, another of the club’s outfield prospects, recently underwent UCL surgery and is out for the year. With Domínguez now out as well, the Yankees don’t have an outfielder on the 40-man roster who could be recalled to cover for someone else’s absence.
In the longer term, it’s obviously less than ideal for a top prospect to lose almost an entire season of development like this. Both Verdugo and Soto are slated for free agency after this season while Grisham will be a non-tender candidate, giving the club little certainty in the outfield going forward apart from Judge. They obviously hope to re-sign Soto but that’s no guarantee and they will need to replace Verdugo and likely Grisham even if they can lure Soto back.
Ideally, Domínguez would be getting regular playing time and convincing the Yankees that he can be a part of their 2025 club, but that will have to be on pause for now. He should still have a few weeks of playing time at the end of the season if things progress as planned from here, but it’s more of the waiting game for Domínguez now.
Yankees Sign Tim Hill
The Yankees announced that they have signed left-hander Tim Hill to a one-year deal. Fellow lefty Clayton Andrews has been designated for assignment in a corresponding 40-man move. Andrews was on optional assignment, so the club will still need to make a move to get Hill onto the active roster once he reports to the team. Jeff Passan of ESPN reported Hill’s impending signing on X prior to the official announcement. Hill was released by the White Sox earlier this week, meaning the Yanks will only have to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster.
Hill, 34, is a veteran ground ball pitcher who signed with the White Sox in the offseason. That one-year deal guaranteed him $1.8MM as the Sox were surely hoping to have him serve as a solid veteran presence in a relief corps that had been thinned out by trades.
But the topline results were poor, as Hill made 27 appearances for Chicago with a 5.87 earned run average. The Sox decided to move on, designating him for assignment last week. Since Hill had more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment while keeping his money, he was released and went to the open market.
Despite the poor ERA, there are reasons why the Yankees would still be intrigued. Hill has always been a ground ball guy, with a 60.5% rate of wormburners in his career. For context, the major league average is usually around 43% or so and is at 42.6% this season. Hill’s numbers in that department have actually been better than ever, as he has had 65.6% of balls in play go into the dirt while with the Sox.
But a lot of them were finding holes, as he has a massive .436 batting average on balls in play for the year. That’s well beyond his .310 career BABIP and this year’s .287 league average. That might have something to do with the poor defenders on the White Sox. That club has a collective -19 Outs Above Average on the year, which is better than just four other teams. Defensive Runs Saved is way more pessimistic, as the Sox are in dead last with a score of -49. The second-worst club by that metric is the Rays at -28.
Hill’s 11% strikeout rate is subpar but it’s understandable that the Yankees perhaps expect some better results going forward. If he can keep making opponents pound the ball into the ground but with some better defense and better luck, the ERA should come down. It’s for those reasons that his 3.45 FIP and 3.89 SIERA are far more attractive.
It’s a fairly low-risk gamble for the Yankees to take. Since the Sox released Hill, they remain on the hook for most of what’s left of his salary. The Yanks will pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster, with that amount subtracted from what the Sox pay, and easily can move on at any point if it doesn’t work out.
As noted by Passan, the Yankees’ bullpen could use some help. They have had Scott Effross, Lou Trivino and Jonathan Loáisiga on the injured list for most or all of the season, while Nick Burdi and Ian Hamilton recently joined them. Last night, Gerrit Cole came off the injured list and tossed 62 pitches over four innings against the Orioles. The game eventually went to ten innings with the Yanks using six different relievers. They don’t have another off-day until Monday, so Hill will give the club a fresh arm for a fairly weary bullpen.
Andrews, 27, has only been a Yankee for a short time. He came up as a Brewers prospect but that club designated him for assignment in February. The Yankees acquired him in a small trade and then passed him through waivers in early April, though he was added back to the roster just over a month later.
In between those transactions, the lefty has made just one appearance at the big league level. Back on May 21, he was put into a game against the Mariners and then proceeded to allow a Luke Raley home run, hit Cal Raleigh with a pitch and strike out Mitch Haniger before being replaced.
He’s spent most of his time in Triple-A, tossing 24 2/3 innings with a 5.84 ERA. His 25.9% strikeout rate and 51.8% ground ball rate at that level are both strong but he’s also given out walks at an awful rate of 20.4%, as well as hitting two batters and throwing two wild pitches. That lack of control has been an issue for Andrews before and has likely contributed to bumping him off the Yankees’ roster.
They will now have a week to trade him or pass him through waivers. Despite the wildness, some other club might be enticed by the strikeouts and ground balls like the Yankees were, especially since Andrews can still be optioned for the rest of this year and one more season. If he were passed through waivers unclaimed, he would have the right to elect free agency by virtue of his previous outright.