Yankees recall Oswaldo Cabrera, send Greg Allen to the IL

Two days ago, in our staff post on Oswaldo Cabrera’s demotion among the roster moves to activate Giancarlo Stanton, Josh Donaldson, and Tommy Kahnle, we said this at the end (emphasis mine):

This isn’t necessarily the end of the road for Oswaldo Cabrera in pinstripes, of course. The good thing is that he remains relatively young with a distinct possibility of returning in the event of further injury since he can play basically anywhere. With a roster as injury-prone as the Yankees, the odds are good that we will see him again in 2023 for more than just a cameo appearance.

Yeah. About that: Cabrera is already back with the big league club. He never actually had time to get into a game at Triple-A Scranton.

Outfielder Greg Allen suffered a right hip flexor injury during a swing on Friday night against the Dodgers, and while he stayed in the game, Willie Calhoun later pinch-hit for him. Now, Allen is heading to the 10-day IL after just 10 games since rejoining the Yankees from the Red Sox. He replaced the DFA’d Aaron Hicks on the active roster and had been seeing some time in center field since Harrison Bader hit the IL himself with a hamstring injury. Expect to mostly see Isiah Kiner-Falefa in center, though Aaron Judge is certainly a candidate to slide over from right field.

As many Yankees know, Cabrera has been stuck in a nasty slump for most of 2023 after an exciting debut across the final couple months of 2022. The 24-year-old is hitting just .195/.246/.292 with a 46 wRC+ in 50 games, so he still has some work to do to return to respectability (and hey, he still brings more to the roster than the likes of Franchy Cordero). Although the utilityman can play just about anywhere, he won’t start tonight.

Allen won’t be alone in heading to the IL. Reliever Ryan Weber is going there as well with right elbow discomfort, and he’ll miss a few weeks at the very least. That kind of injury in particular bummer because it’s been cool to see the 32-year-old come up big at various points in his 14.1 innings across eight games, even without the kind of dynamic stuff that other bullpen arms often flash. But no matter how hard you throw, the duress on the elbow can still come back to bite you. Weber will be replaced on the roster by fellow veteran Nick Ramirez, who was up from Triple-A for six games in New York earlier this year.

Below is the Yankees’ official announcement.