Yankees activate Jake Bauers, Greg Allen from IL; Franchy Cordero demoted

The Yankees had been suffering enough injuries and disappointments in 2023 that a handful of depth players brought in to replace some of the starters had stumbled onto the IL themselves. They get two of those replacements back today, which should hopefully bolster their bench and their often-scuffling lineup as well.

With Anthony Rizzo somehow still homerless since mid-May, the Yankees have had a serious lefty power outage this season. Jake Bauers had at least provided a little balm, batting .224/.312/.470 with 12 doubles, 7 homers, and a 114 wRC+ in 49 games. A veteran of five different organizations prior to joining the Yankees’ Triple-A club midseason last year, the 27-year-old Bauers had altered his mechanics to get off to a scalding-hot start in Scranton prior to his promotion at the end of April, but an errant dive on July 5th led to left rotator cuff inflammation and a brief IL stint.

The Yankees are obviously glad to have Bauers back, as he’ll be leading off and manning right this afternoon while New York attempts to sweep Kansas City. A return of the outfielder/first baseman’s lefty pop would be appreciated.

Fellow outfielder Greg Allen was in the midst of his second stint in pinstripes when he was hit by the injury bug. A brief Yankees contributor in 2021, Allen had underwhelmed in Pittsburgh last season before signing a minor-league deal with the Red Sox for this season. He was in Triple-A, but in mid-May, he exercised an assignment clause that forced Boston to make a decision on calling him or not, so they instead worked out a rare trade with the Yankees for a very young DSL pitcher, Diego Hernandez.

The switch-hitting Allen went 3-for-14 with a triple, a homer, and a stolen base across 10 games. The day before Aaron Judge infamously went down at Dodger Stadium, Allen got hurt there, too. He tweaked his hip during an at-bat on June 2nd and had to leave the game. He was diagnosed with a right hip flexor injury, and he needed six rehab games between Low-A Tampa and Triple-A Scranton to get back on track. Allen isn’t in the starting lineup today, but look for him to make appearances as a late defensive replacement or pinch-runner for some of the more lead-footed members of the team (read: Rizzo, Giancarlo Stanton, DJ LeMahieu).

To make room for Bauers and Allen, the Yankees optioned Franchy Cordero and Oswaldo Cabrera back to Triple-A. The Cabrera move was made last night, and Cordero went out with the news today.