The Yankees have released veteran first baseman/outfielder Seth Brown, per the transaction log at MiLB.com. He’d been playing with their Triple-A affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. MLBTR has learned that Brown had an opt-out in his contract, which he triggered. The team granted Brown his release rather than add him to the 40-man roster.
The 33-year-old Brown signed a minor league contract with the Yankees in January. He had a rough showing during spring training and didn’t make the club but has turned in a roughly average .235/.327/.436 slash with nine homers in 208 Triple-A plate appearances. Brown has walked in just over 11% of his plate appearances but has also fanned in just under one-third of his trips to the batter’s box. Part of that stems from not being strictly platooned; the lefty-swinging Brown has hit just .189/.286/.270 with 22 punchouts in 42 plate appearances versus southpaws (52.4%). He’s hitting .247/.337/.466 with a high but more palatable 28% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching.
Brown is a veteran of seven major league seasons — all coming with the A’s. He’s a career .226/.292/.419 hitter who has twice topped 20 homers in a season. From 2021-22, Brown popped 45 homers in 862 plate appearances with the Athletics, despite playing his home games in Oakland’s cavernous coliseum. He’s never hit lefties well (.147/.236/.275) but is a career .234/.301/.441 hitter (108 wRC+) against right-handed pitching.
Defensively, Brown has at least 1000 major league innings at first base and in each outfield corner. He’s logged 187 innings in center field, but the majority of that work came back in 2022. Interested parties are going to view him primarily as a first base/corner outfield/designated hitter depth option who’d presumably see the bulk of his action against right-handed pitching if he were summoned back to the big leagues. Speculatively speaking, both the Padres and Phillies have struggled against right-handed pitching this season, and both have recently incurred some notable injuries in the outfield mix.
