Yankees Outright Pair, Lose Speedster To Twins

The New York Yankees were able to hold onto two of the three players they recently exposed to the waiver process. Per the team, the Yankees outrighted outfielder Oscar González and infielder Jeter Downs to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The Yankees claimed Downs from the Washington Nationals on Dec. 19 after the Nationals designated him for assignment a week earlier. The Yankees claimed González off waivers from Cleveland in December and then designated him for assignment on Jan. 17.

Downs’ MLB player page doesn’t indicate he was DFA’ed, but if he is being outrighted that means he went through the process and no other team claimed him. The Yankees weren’t so lucky with speedy outfielder Bubba Thompson. He was picked up by Minnesota off waivers after the Yankees DFA’ed him last week. The Yankees picked him up off waivers on Jan. 4.

Thompson was a former first-round pick of the Texas Rangers who made his MLB debut in 2022. In two seasons and 92 games with the Rangers he batted .242 with one home run and 13 RBI. He’s one of the fastest players at any level

 in baseball and has a plus-glove. Since the Rangers DFA’ed Thompson in August, he’s been with Kansas City, Cincinnati and the Yankees. Downs has just 20 MLB games under his belt and has a .182 batting average with one home run and five RBI. He was a competitive balance round pick (No. 32) overall of Cincinnati in 2017. He made his MLB debut with Boston in 2022 before landing with Washington last season.

González has played 145 MLB games, all with Cleveland in 2022-23. He has a .269 batting average with two home runs and 12 RBI. Cleveland signed him out of the Dominican Republic in 2014.