BRADENTON, Fla. – Luke Voit represented what the Yankees had become. He was muscled and right-handed. He was single-minded as a hitter and single-dimensional as a player.
Beginning at the trade deadline last year and accelerating after the Yankees meekly exited the AL wild card game against the Red Sox, the leadership of the team finally accepted that the group as assembled had gone as far as it was going to go – which was not far enough.
So Clint Frazier was untendered. Gary Sanchez and Gio Urshela were traded to the Twins. On Friday, Voit was in the batting cage readying to play first and bat cleanup in the Yankees’ spring training opener against the Pirates when first Aaron Boone in person, and soon after Brian Cashman via phone revealed he was the latest part of the breaking up of this band.
Voit was dealt to the Padres for righty pitching prospect Justin Lange, who was the 34th overall pick in 2020. As trade execution goes, this was merciful. It came quickly after Voit’s diminishing role pretty much evaporated with the re-signing of Anthony Rizzo. It came early enough in even this condensed spring training for Voit to establish himself with a new team before Opening Day.
“I’m really happy,” Voit said. “It’s a good thing for my career, you know, kind of a fresh start.”
That is what the Yankees were for him as well. He was buried on the Cardinals behind Matt Carpenter and Jose Martinez at first. But soon after his July 2018 acquisition, Voit established his might with the Yankees.
Over the next three seasons, he was part mammoth and part mascot, crushing homers and bottles of water (and beers) to celebrate. He was not afraid to speak his mind. And in 2020, he led the AL in homers in the COVID-abbreviated season.
But the problems with Voit became evident as well. He had trouble staying healthy and he was a middle linebacker masquerading as a first baseman. The Yankees just had accumulated too many righty-hitting, injury-prone, fielding-challenged, strikeout-susceptible clones. Part of the switch away from this was obtaining Rizzo from the Cubs last July, the beginning of the beginning of the end for Voit.
Voit knew he was on borrowed time as a Yankee and the team appreciated how he handled what Boone called “a difficult situation,” especially the past few days with Rizzo’s return. Now he projects to be the Padres’ regular designated hitter – a gift to Voit that the NL adopted the DH this year.
The Yankees also cleared a roster spot and would look far better if they could find any or all from more catching depth to a quality center field backup for Aaron Hicks or a shortstop to back up Isiah Kiner-Falefa, so that Gleyber Torres need not.
But there already has been a substantial facelift, albeit without going to the top of the market this offseason with a Carlos Corea and Freddie Freeman.
The dismissal of Sanchez, Urshela and Voit in the last week was the most overt act away from who the Yankees have been in recent seasons. Voit and Urshela were the corner infielders for a 103-win AL East winner in 2019; symbolic of the better job the Yankees were doing finding undervalued chips in the market. But there was a clock on Cinderella. Their effectiveness and sturdiness waned in 2021.
Cashman and his baseball operations department had resisted major alterations to the positional group for years. When the base grew overly right-handed, Cashman insisted the lefty alternatives were inferior. When the defense grew more Jurassic, the general manager said that fielding was not being ignored, but that all-around assets were hard to find.
Since the 2021 trade deadline, however, the Yankees have steadily changed the complexion of the positional group. It was heightened in the last week as Sanchez, Urshela and now Voit went out the door. That assembly went far, but kept hitting the same wall. It went far, but not far enough. See called the close, but no title an annual “gut punch.”
And the Yankee brass couldn’t stomach it any longer.
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