Yankees trade Chasen Shreve and Giovanny Gallegos to the Cardinals for Luke Voit

It’s not the big move we were hoping for, but the Yankees agreed to a deal with the Cardinals tonight. New York will send relievers Chasen Shreve and Giovanny Gallegos to St. Louis in exchange for first baseman Luke Voit and international signing bonus pool money.

Shreve, 28, has been in the Yankees’ bullpen since they acquired him from the Braves in 2015. The lefty was dominant for the first few months of 2015, but it pretty much all went downhill from there. He posted a 3.89 ERA (4.99 FIP) across 173.2 innings during his time in New York. For most of this season, Shreve has been on the brink of being designated for assignment. Better to have found a new home with the Cardinals than DFA’d. I’ll always fondly remember the time that he bailed Aroldis Chapman out of that bases loaded, zero out situation last weekend.

Gallegos, meanwhile, has been an up-and-down arm for the Yankees since 2017. The 26-year-old owns a career 4.75 ERA with a 3.98 FIP over 30.1 innings. The right-hander had solid strikeout numbers, but allowed a few too many home runs and generated virtually no groundballs. He was more of a depth arm than legitimate bullpen piece for the Yankees.

Voit, 27, is a right-handed hitting first baseman with some pop in his bat. In 67 games with the Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate this season, he hit .299/.391/.500 with nine home runs. At the big league level, however, he’s slashed .182/.308/.455 with one home run across parts of eight games.

The first baseman will strike out a lot, as evidenced by his career 25.5% strikeout rate. He doesn’t walk a whole lot either. But when he connects with the ball, he can do some damage. In some ways he’s not unlike Tyler Austin.

The Yankees had to swing this trade; the roster became too crowded in the wake of the Zach Britton and J.A. Happ deals. I’m not sure if Voit is the answer to the team’s search for right-handed hitting, however, or if he’s ticketed for the RailRiders.

Good luck to Shreve and Gallegos! We might not miss them, but we wish them all the best with their new team.