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Luke Voit

Yankees Acquire Luke Voit From Cardinals

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11:48pm: New York received $1MM in international money in the swap, Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com tweets. Sanchez echoes Badler in noting that the Yankees will likely use that money to sign Rodriguez, whom they’re expected to land for $1.1MM.

10:09pm: The Yankees have acquired first baseman Luke Voit and international signing bonus pool money from the Cardinals for relievers Chasen Shreve and Giovanny Gallegos, per an announcement from New York.

The 27-year-old Voit joins Tyler Austin as the second right-handed-hitting first baseman at the Triple-A level for the Yankees. Voit, who has a minor league option remaining, has racked up 137 major league plate appearances since 2017 (just 13 this year) and batted .240/.307/.432 with five home runs. He has been far better as a member of Triple-A Memphis this year, with which he has hit .299/.391/.500 with nine homers in 271 PAs. It’s unclear whether Voit will get a big league shot immediately with the Yankees, though they could arguably use some offensive help after losing superstar slugger Aaron Judge to the disabled list Friday.

The most proven major leaguer in this swap is Shreve, whom the Yankees deemed redundant after adding fellow lefty Zach Britton to an already loaded bullpen earlier this week. Shreve, 28, saw extensive action with the Yankees in each season from 2015-18 and combined for a 3.88 ERA/4.89 FIP with 10.42 K/9, 4.56 BB/9 and a 43.7 percent groundball rate over 173 2/3 innings. He has posted similar numbers through 38 frames this year, with a 4.26 ERA/4.98 FIP, 10.89 K/9, 4.26 BB/9 and a 46.7 percent grounder rate.

The long ball has haunted Shreve this season, as he has allowed homers on 23.5 percent on fly balls, and has given up an unappealing .240/.356/.551 line to left-handed hitters. Nevertheless, the Cardinals seem to be banking on a turnaround from the out-of-options Shreve as they radically reconstruct their bullpen. The additions of Shreve and Gallegos are the latest moves to make over a relief unit that said goodbye to relievers Greg Holland, Sam Tuivailala and Tyler Lyons on Friday. Shreve could be a multiyear solution for the Cards, who will be able to control him via arbitration through 2021. He’s making a meager $825K this season.

Gallegos, 26, still has a pair of options left. The right-hander has amassed 30 1/3 major league innings since 2017 (including 10 this season) and recorded a 4.75 ERA/3.98 FIP with 9.49 K/9, 2.37 BB/9 and a 36.5 percent grounder percentage. Most of Gallegos’ year has been spent at Triple-A Scranton, where he has accumulated 27 2/3 frames and registered a 3.90 ERA/1.68 FIP with tremendous strikeout and walk rates (13.34 K/9, 2.28 BB/9).

Along with saying goodbye to Voit to reel in both Shreve and Gallegos, the Redbirds dealt an undisclosed amount of international bonus pool money. That’s likely not a big deal to St. Louis, which is barred from spending more than $300K on any individual prospect, whereas the Yankees could use their added cash to sign high-end Cuban pitching prospect Osiel Rodriguez and/or fellow countryman Carlos Verdecia, a shortstop, Ben Badler of Baseball America notes on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Cardinals Select Daniel Poncedeleon

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The Cardinals announced that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Daniel Poncedeleon from Triple-A Memphis. First baseman Luke Voit has been optioned back to Memphis in a corresponding move.

It’ll be the first call to the Majors for Poncedeleon, who persevered through a frightening head injury that necessitated brain surgery after he was struck in the head by a comeback line drive last May (link via MLB.com’s Jen Langosch). The 26-year-old was a ninth-round pick of the Cards back in 2014.

Poncedeleon made just six starts for the Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate last season due to that scare, but he’s appeared in a dozen games (11 of them starts) in Memphis this season, pitching to a 2.41 ERA with 10.7 K/9, 5.3 BB/9, 0.3 HR/9 and a 32.4 percent ground-ball rate in 59 2/3 innings. While he’s not considered among the Cardinals’ top couple of tiers of prospects, Poncedeleon received an honorable mention in last year’s rankings from Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs, drawing praise for an “above-average downhill fastball, deep-breaking curveball and fading changeup.” Longenhagen’s report notes that there’s a chance Poncedeleon ultimately settles into the bullpen.

[Related: Updated St. Louis Cardinals depth chart]

For the Cardinals, Poncedeleon will give them another option both in the rotation and in the bullpen following some injury woes in both regards. St. Louis recently lost Alex Reyes for the season and is uncertain as to when Adam Wainwright will be healthy enough to return, though the team still has a strong rotation mix of Carlos Martinez, Miles Mikolas, Luke Weaver, Michael Wacha and Jack Flaherty. But relievers Matt Bowman, Greg Holland, Tyler Lyons, Luke Gregerson and Dominic Leone are all also on the disabled list, so Poncedeleon replenishes some needed depth for their staff.

Cardinals Place Alex Reyes On DL With “Significant” Lat Strain

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3:07pm: It’s a “significant” lat strain for Reyes, GM Mike Girsch tells reporters (Twitter link via Mark Saxon of The Athletic). There won’t be an exact timetable on his recovery until he receives a second opinion, per Saxon, though certainly that update from Girsch is far from promising. An MRI taken this morning revealed the injury, tweets Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

2:09pm: The Cardinals announced today that they’ve placed top prospect Alex Reyes back on the disabled list with a strained right lat muscle. St. Louis also optioned struggling outfielder Tyler O’Neill and right-hander John Gant to Triple-A Memphis. Filling those spots on the roster will be lefty Austin Gomber, righty Mike Mayers and first baseman Luke Voit, each of whom has been recalled from Memphis.

Reyes had Cardinals fans salivating as he tore through minor league batters in a rehab assignment, and he looked dominant in the first inning of yesterday’s return affair before slowly experiencing a dip in his velocity over the subsequent three innings. President of baseball ops John Mozeliak told The Athletic’s Jim Bowden last night that Reyes’ elbow was “fine,” and that appears to be the case, though the lat muscle presents a new issue for the vaunted young right-hander to overcome. While any injury to Reyes’ throwing arm is of course a cause for concern for the organization, it’s likely a silver lining that the issue is not specific to his surgically repaired right elbow.

With Reyes back on the shelf, the Cards will once again deploy a rotation consisting of Miles Mikolas, Luke Weaver, Michael Wacha and Jack Flaherty as they await the return of ace Carlos Martinez from a lat strain of his own. Martinez did go out on a minor league rehab assignment today, per the team’s transactions page, but while he’s nearing a return, it seems that fans will have to wait for the a highly anticipated 1-2 punch of Martinez and Reyes atop the staff.

[Related: St. Louis Cardinals depth chart]

As for O’Neill, he’ll head back to Triple-A and look to make continued strides on his approach at the plate and his bat-to-ball skills. While the 22-year-old flashed the power that has made him such an intriguing prospect, early proclamations of a new star’s arrival were proven premature. O’Neill struggled enormously to make consistent contact, whiffing in 43.9 percent of his trips to the plate and in 13 of his final 19 plate appearances before being optioned out.

None of that is to suggest that O’Neill doesn’t have the potential to develop into a regular middle-of-the-order threat for the Cards, of course. While contact issues had plagued him earlier in his minor league tenure, he whittled his strikeout rate down to a more respectable 23.3 percent in Memphis this season before being called to the Majors. His approach still needs some refinement, though, as was evidenced by a 2.5 percent walk rate in Triple-A and a near-identical mark in his brief MLB tenure this season. O’Neill has mashed 13 homers in 120 PAs with Memphis and three in the bigs, though, so there’s little doubting the legitimacy of his power.

With O’Neill in the minors, it’ll be Marcell Ozuna, Tommy Pham, Dexter Fowler and Harrison Bader splitting up the bulk of the outfield duties. Meanwhile, in the rotation, it’s possible that Gomber could step up and make a spot start as the team awaits the return of Martinez. If not, he’ll give the ’pen a fresh lefty at a time when both Brett Cecil and Tyler Lyons have endured some considerable struggles. Gomber has made nine start in Memphis and logged a solid 3.60 ERA with a 63-to-17 K/BB ratio in 55 innings of work.

Mayers, meanwhile, will return for another stint to give the bullpen some depth. The 26-year-old has already been optioned to Memphis and incredible five times in the season’s first two months, and that seems likely to be the role he fills in St. Louis this season unless further injuries in the Majors carve out a more permanent spot for him.

The 27-year-old Voit is hitting just .243/.351/.348 in Triple-A so far in 2018, but he had a monster season there in 2017 and also hit .246/.306/.430 with four homers in 128 plate appearances at the Major League level. This’ll be his first appearance on the 2018 roster for the Cards.

Central Notes: Cain, Royals, Tribe, Cards, Tigers

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The Royals will be reluctant to invest significant money in an outfielder who’s on the wrong side of 30 over the winter, which makes a potential Lorenzo Cain exit seem more likely, Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star writes. For his part, the 31-year-old Cain (32 next April) realizes his terrific tenure with the Royals could be on the verge of ending. “They all know where I stand as far as coming back to KC,” the impending free agent said. “They know I would love to come back here. I said it in the spring, and I’ll say it again now. But at the same time, everyone has to do what’s best for themselves. No one knows what’s going to happen.” Cain has been outstanding since debuting in earnest with the Royals in 2011, including this year (.301/.364/.442, 15 home runs, 26 stolen bases across 643 plate appearances), and was a key component of an AL pennant winner in 2014 and a World Series champion the next season.

More from the Central divisions:

  • Indians pitching coach Mickey Callaway will be a popular managerial candidate in the coming weeks, Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com tweets. “He’s on everybody’s list,” one executive said of the 42-year-old Callaway, who has been the Tribe’s pitching coach since 2013 and is now in charge of arguably one of the best staffs in baseball history. If Callaway does become a manager in the offseason, it’ll be with the Phillies, Tigers or Mets, barring an unexpected firing elsewhere.
  • Jose Martinez will have an opportunity to win the Cardinals’ first base job in 2018, manager Mike Matheny suggested to reporters, including Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, on Saturday. “He’s going to fight for it. I don’t know why he couldn’t (be the regular first baseman),” said Matheny, who also named Luke Voit as a candidate for the role. The majority of the work at first this year has gone to franchise linchpin Matt Carpenter, but he could shift back to second/third base next season. Like Carpenter, Martinez has been one of the Cards’ top offensive players in 2017. In his first extensive action in the majors, the 29-year-old rookie has batted an excellent .306/.377/.517 with 14 home runs in 306 PAs. Voit, a 26-year-old rookie, has hit .252/.308/.441 in 120 PAs.
  • Royals left-hander Danny Duffy will undergo surgery Tuesday to remove “loose bodies” from his elbow, per Dodd (Twitter link). Duffy landed on the disabled list Aug. 27 with an elbow impingement, though he did return in mid-September to make three more starts. In the first season of a five-year, $65MM contract extension, Duffy logged a 3.81 ERA over 146 1/3 innings, to go with 8.0 K/9 against 2.52 BB/9.
  • The Tigers announced some additions to their scouting staff and analytics department on Friday, as Jason Beck of MLB.com details. Most notably, the Tigers promoted former utilityman Don Kelly to a full-time scouting role. An eighth-round pick of he Tigers in 2001, Kelly played in Detroit from 2009-14 and, upon his retirement last winter, joined its baseball department on a trial basis.

Cardinals Place Dexter Fowler, Kevin Siegrist On DL

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The Cardinals have placed center fielder Dexter Fowler and reliever Kevin Siegrist on the disabled list, according to Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com (on Twitter). In other moves, the team has optioned outfielder Chad Huffman to Triple-A, recalled outfielder Randal Grichuk and right-hander Mike Mayers, and selected the contract of outfielder Luke Voit, as Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was among those to report (Twitter link).

Fowler, who hasn’t played since Wednesday, is dealing with a right heel spur, per Langosch. The big-money offseason signing has pulled his weight offensively for a club that has struggled to a 33-40 start, making his loss another blow to its slim playoff chances. Fowler has slashed .245/.336/.481 with 13 long balls, matching his home run total from last year in nearly 300 fewer plate appearances (277 to 551), and a career-best .237 ISO. The 31-year-old has seemingly taken steps backward in the field, though, after he made progress in the grass with the Cubs in 2016. All told, Fowler has accounted for minus-8 defensive runs saved and a minus-8.3 UZR/150 in 60 games.

At times a dominant member of St. Louis’ bullpen since debuting in 2013, the 27-year-old Siegrist is in the midst of one of his worst seasons and is now battling a cervical spine strain. The left-hander has managed a disappointing 4.28 ERA in 27 1/3 innings. Along the way, Siegrist has posted his lowest strikeout rate per nine (8.23), had issues with control (4.94 BB/9) and experienced a notable velocity drop. Siegrist has also had trouble versus left-handed hitters, who have batted .268/.375/.463 off him this year.

Voit, a 22nd-round pick in 2013, will fill the last spot on the Cardinals’ 40-man roster. The 26-year-old toyed with Triple-A pitchers prior to his promotion, slashing .322/.406/.561 with 12 homers in 293 PAs.

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