Within a span of 10 days, three former Yankees lineup mainstays — Aaron Hicks, Gary Sanchez and Luke Voit — were all designated for assignment.
Hicks was the first to go, on May 20, by the Yankees, followed by Sanchez on May 25 courtesy of the Mets, and Voit, by the Brewers, on Monday.
None of the moves were especially unexpected, although Hicks was a bit of a stunner, given that he was still due most of the $30 million the Yankees owed him from the seven-year, $70 million deal he signed prior to the 2019 season. (They’ll save about $500,000 after Hicks signed with Baltimore on Tuesday to replace the injured Cedric Mullins.)
It’s easy to draw the paths of what went wrong for all three one-time sluggers.
Hicks never lived up to expectations — or was able to stay healthy — after signing his extension with the Yankees in ’19.
Voit couldn’t follow up his strong start to his Yankees career, in large part because of knee injuries that eventually led to the Yankees changing course and trading for Anthony Rizzo to take Voit’s spot at first base in 2021.
And Sanchez’s downfall has been especially well-chronicled, as his career has been in free-fall for most of the last four seasons. He was dealt to the Twins in the spring of 2022 and the Yankees brought in Jose Trevino from Texas to stabilize the team’s defense behind the plate.
But there was a time when it seemed the three could become longtime cogs in the Yankees offense.
When Voit arrived from St. Louis at the trade deadline in 2018, Sanchez was having an ugly season at the plate, but was just a year removed from a 33-homer season and an All-Star appearance.
And Hicks, although it may seem hard to remember, was having the season — finishing with an .833 OPS and career-high 27 homers — that gave the Yankees enough optimism about his future that they signed him to the new deal the following spring.
It all came together for Hicks, Sanchez and Voit late in the ’18 season, as all three went deep in an 11-6 win over the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Sept. 28 in a victory that clinched home field advantage for the wild-card game.
Aaron Judge also homered and Miguel Andujar added a double in the win over Boston, for good measure.
But Hicks had just come back from a tight left hamstring, an injury that ended up sidelining him in the postseason and none of the three played well in the five-game ALDS loss to the Red Sox.
Things got sidetracked to various degrees from then on.
Sanchez, with a career-high 34 homers and a second All-Star Game, and Voit, who hit 21 homers, rebounded in 2019, but Hicks suffered an elbow injury that eventually led to Tommy John surgery.
In the 2020 COVID-shortened season, Voit led the majors with 22 homers, but Hicks hit just .225 and Sanchez hit an almost impossibly low .147.
After Voit’s injury-filled ’21 season, he was traded to the Padres, while the Yankees waited another year before finally shipping Sanchez to Minnesota.
And following another rough start to 2023, the Yankees decided to eat the majority of the rest of Hicks’ deal.
Only five years after the three appeared to be long-term answers, they find themselves looking to restart their careers, from Baltimore to San Diego (with whom Sanchez just signed) and wherever Voit eventually lands.
Today’s back page
Read more:
⚾ SHERMAN: Mets need rotation to deliver more of what Kodai Senga did to unlock potential
🏀 Knicks parting ways with general manager Scott Perry
⚾ Yankees wallop Mariners as Aaron Judge, bats stay red-hot
⚾ Mike Piazza nothing but impressed by Mets’ Francisco Alvarez: ‘Very exciting’
The Heat is on
When the Miami Heat took out the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs, it seemed the Knicks might have a path to the Eastern Conference finals, provided they got by the Heat.
And now that Miami is on its way to meet the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals, it appears that path did exist, since the Boston Celtics were certainly beatable.
Although the Knicks lost to the Heat in six games, it wasn’t that long ago that they were on the verge of bringing the series back to Madison Square Garden.
Down by two points with under a minute left in the fourth quarter in Game 6, the normally unflappable Jalen Brunson tried to force a bad pass under the basket.
It ended up leading to a season-ending turnover, and to Jimmy Butler hitting two free throws to seal the win.
The Knicks went home, left to ponder the future of Julius Randle and others, while Miami won a date with Boston, a team that turned out to not be as overwhelming as its No. 2 seed would make it seem.
Rotating rotation
The Mets are still likely at least a month away from finally having the rotation they expected this offseason, since Jose Quintana isn’t expected back until July.
But as they started a key homestand with a 2-0 win on Tuesday against the Phillies at Citi Field, they are in the middle of a third turn through the rotation with five healthy starters: Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Kodai Senga, Carlos Carrasco and Tylor Megill.
In the 13-game stretch after the struggling David Peterson was sent down to Triple-A Syracuse, the Mets have gone 8-5 depite getting mostly inconsistent performances from a rotation that has been fortified — very expensively — in free agency the last two years.
There are reasons to believe, however, that things could soon round into form on the mound.
Senga, Tuesday’s winner, has allowed three runs or fewer in four of his last five starts.
Scherzer has the lowest strikeout rate of his career so far this season and his walks are up, but the 38-year-old is also in his best stretch of the season, having allowed just two runs over 18 innings in his last three starts — all Mets wins.
Verlander, 40, has struggled in two of his previous three outings, but during his American League Cy Young Award-winning season with the Astros last year, he was even better in the second half than in his other-worldly first half.
And Carrasco showed some promising signs in his last start in Chicago, which was his best of the season.
With Senga acclimating well to the majors, and the three veteran right-handers rounding into form after each dealt with injuries, Quintana — who had rib surgery in the spring — promises to give the Mets the star-filled rotation they expected if all goes according to plan and he eventually slots in for Megill.
Still, age and health histories guarantee nothing. As Verlander himself said at his introductory press conference at Citi Field in December, “The longer I play the game, I’ve realized you can’t take anything for granted.”