The Brewers have claimed catcher Stephen Vogt off waivers from the Athletics, reports Jerry Crasnick of ESPN (on Twitter). Milwaukee was the only team to put in a claim for Vogt, tweets Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle.
[RELATED: Updated Brewers Depth Chart]
The 32-year-old Vogt had been in limbo since the A’s designated him for assignment on Thursday. Moving on from the respected clubhouse leader was a difficult decision for Oakland, but the club deemed it necessary after Vogt batted just .217/.287/.357 over 174 plate appearances. That was a steep drop-off for Vogt, who served as a better-than-average offensive catcher from 2013-16, when he combined for a .260/.319/.423 line in 1,478 trips to the plate and earned All-Star nods in each of the previous two seasons.
Defensively, Vogt has struggled behind the plate as a pitch framer throughout his career (per Baseball Prospectus). Vogt hasn’t fared well at keeping would-be base stealers at bay this year, either, having thrown out just 15 percent of runners. However, he did hover around the league-average mark in prior seasons.
In the aggregate, Brewers catchers Manny Pina and Jett Bandy have offered better production than Vogt this year, having combined to slash .250/.307/.416 in 323 PAs. But both have come down to earth at the plate since hot starts, and Bandy has been especially poor lately (he’s hitting .053 this month). Bandy’s also giving the Brewers subpar production behind the plate and, unlike Pina, has a minor league option remaining. As such, it appears he’ll head to Triple-A, which would leave the righty-swinging Pina and the left-handed Vogt to work in a timeshare.
A resurgence from Vogt could help the surprising Brewers stay in the playoff hunt this season (they’re a half-game up on the Cubs for the NL Central lead), but he also comes with further team control. Vogt, who’s earning an affordable $2.965MM salary this season, is scheduled to take two more trips through arbitration.
Y?
veteran clubhouse presence
All ready have Braun and Garza we don’t want for that!
From all accounts Vogt is an amazing clubhouse presence. Garza is definitely not that. Vogt was an All Star in ’15 and ’16. Makes little money. Not sure why people would hate this
Already. Sorry for you english majors
English and you missed a period.
Matt Garza? A veteran clubhouse presence? The same Matt Garza that goes after players’ wives on Twitter? LOL
Vote a recent all star show some love
And refused to play if he was moved to the bullpen
Why? He’s not better than Pina, and at this point he’s also probably not better than Bandy.
My thoughts exactly.
Bandy 2 for his last 44. Organizational options are never a bad thing.
He’s almost definitely better than Bandy, who’s about 2 for his last 43 and has looked hopelessly overmatched over the past month. Susac is struggling in the minors too, so the Brewers thought they’d take a chance on a guy who was an All-Star the previous two seasons. Maybe a change of scenery will do him good.
If Vogt doesn’t rebound, the can release him. It gives Bandy some time to work out of his slump at AAA. It makes sense.
Why wouldn’t they let him clear and snag him for the minimum. Just seems like a waste of a few million.
That would be my first thought too, but just because only one team claimed him doesn’t mean that only one team would know pursue him once he cleared waivers.
If Vogt cleared then every team would have had a shot and him and he could have chosen his landing spot. I’m sure Milwaukee wasn’t his first choice.
Makes no sense to me unless there is a trade a brewing down the road
“Brewing”… I see what you did there.
I like to brew some beer at the Brewers game, so when I am brewing people ask what I brew at Brewers games, and I tell them I brew Brewers brew.
A side note- anyone else realize Connor attempting to show off his vocabulary with “Halcyon”? Never knew that was a word.
It’s a good word, but I cut that sentence during editing.
Halcyon Days was a great album (back in the day).
In my opinion the most important position to have a veteran is behind the plate to work with all the young arms that they have. Maybe he can turn things around and start producing like Thames has when he came to the Brewers(I know Thames was doing well in Korea before he came back but nobody saw this coming) so maybe he could return to his old self and give the surprising Brewers a lineup core when healthy of Braun Thames Vogt Shaw and Villar that is a pretty deep lineup and one that certainly capable I think of making it to the playoffs. I think them and the Rockies are just a few pieces away from completing their rebuild and returning to contention, just like the Brewers were when they had Fielder Braun Weeks Hart and Ramirez.
I don’t think he plays another game at catcher in his life
All star in back to back years. If one of their catchers get injured he’s a good replacement as the backup.
Who cares. No chance the brewers keep up their fluke first have. When you have a guy that hit 12 home runs in 2 and a half weeks it gives the rest of the team that feeling that we are actually good. Guys like jett banty and Eric segard are judy hitters that jyst happen to see the ball well. They wouldn’t even be in triple with most teams.
Dear Wrek305:
1. Your Cubs lost again today.
2. Brewers still in first place.
3. It’s Sogard not “segard” and it’s Bandy not “banty”
4. Turn on your spellcheck
5. What’s a “judy hitter”?
If you don’t know what a judy hitter is then you have a lot to learn about baseball. Basically a judy hitter is someone who is a pest. Ericka Aybar. He’s a judy. He’ll get that bloop hit when and get 2 rbi. Or somehow.manage.to to hit a hr. It’s a total shocker when it happens.
Oh you mean like David Eckstein who
“Judy hitters that jyst happen to see the ball well”. Isn’t that the key to hitting?
Yeah sure for good hitters..bandy and sogard are like Eric Byrnes and Cody Ross. Without the dramatic diving for rountine flyballs
Cubs settling back into losers after their “fluke” World Series.
Yes because 103 win teams aren’t supposed to win World Series. The are just a fluke for a whole year. That is sound logic.
Cubs fans only have to wait til 2124 for the next one. Lol
103 win teams don’t revert back to. .500 either do they?
*sarcasm font*
Im a brewers fan and I actually do have my doubts we will hold off the cubs. There’s a ton of talent there and I do expect the cubs to go on a big hot streak. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t respect what the brewers are doing. They are getting good starting pitching and offensive contributions from a bunch of guys. And that happened with arguably our two best players from last year either spending much of the year on the DL (Braun) or underperforming (Villar). If we can get them back healthy (Villar is also hurt) and maybe add an arm or two to the bullpen (they shouldn’t go crazy and make a huge trade but we have a lot of good prospects and not all of them will make it to milwaukee), we might be there all the way.
Thanks for chiming in common sense Brewer fan. Fans of the crew should be excited about the direction of the franchise, good young pieces, they are headed in the right direction. Baseball is a weird sport, you never know what could happen, Milwaukee may hang around,but to count out the Cubs is ridiculous. Milwaukee doesn’t need to get too crazy at the trade deadline, being a small market team they’ll need to depend on their young players a bit more than a larger market team. Time will tell, good luck in the 2nd, as a Cubs fan it is good to see the Brewers relevant again at least.
This is a low risk high reward type of move. Vogt’s contract is cheap (and we have a very low payroll to begin with) and he’s been a multiple time all-star. If he gets back to his hitting form from the last few years it’s a major plus. If he doesn’t no big loss as Bandy has been struggling. Hopefully Bandy can go down to Colorado Springs and get his stroke back. All in all it’s an excellent move by David Sterns.
People really don’t understand what high reward means…
Cheap player(low risk).All-star the last 2 years(high reward).
Vogt is a stud and a club leader with postseason experience. Excellent pick up!
teams could always have a veteran catcher…surprised they were the only team…
How come none here are general managers?
Do you know that for sure???
I think Vote can turn it around. This year when he swings his head turns before his hands come around so his timing is off a bit
This isn’t complicated:
Jett Bandy is 2 for his last million and fallen off defensively.
Bandy has an option remaining.
Vogt is a 2x All Star who is cheap and hits from the Left, complementing Piña.
End of analysis.
$3,000,000.00 for a catcher who throws out 15% and barely hitting over .200 and was a all star by default. Good pickup. Lol
I guess my question is how does Andrew Susac factor into the catching scheme for MIL? Giants were high on him, but he was blocked by Posey, and came to the Brewers in the Will Smith trade last year
He looks like Farmer Fran from ‘The Waterboy’.
“Amee pa pai annaday”