{"id":81738,"date":"2024-07-30T10:41:56","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T14:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=81738"},"modified":"2024-07-30T10:48:29","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T14:48:29","slug":"yankees-release-jeter-downs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/30\/yankees-release-jeter-downs\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees Release Infielder Once Considered a Former Top Prospect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday, the New York Yankees announced that infielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/downsje01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jeter Downs<\/a> will leave the team to join Japan&#8217;s Fukuoka SoftBank Hanks, per Bryan Hoch of <em>MLB.com<\/em>. Downs, 25, was once a former top prospect, having been selected 32nd overall by the Cincinnati Reds in 2017. His time in the minor leagues saw him play for two organizations as part of a major trade. The first was when Downs went to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2020\/02\/04\/boston-red-sox-trade-mookie-betts-and-david-price-to-the-los-angeles-dodgers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">seven-player trade<\/a>. The Yankees had two of the three players that went to Boston in that deal, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=verdual01,verdug001ale&amp;search=Alex+Verdugo&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alex Verdugo<\/a> leaving the Boston Red Sox with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wongco01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connor Wong<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Yankees have released infielder Jeter Downs. Downs has signed with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Japan.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bryan Hoch \u26be\ufe0f (@BryanHoch) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BryanHoch\/status\/1818279617746313517?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 30, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Jeter Downs Released by Yankees<\/h2>\n<p>Downs did not live up to the prospect hype. Over the past three years in the minor leagues, he hit .200\/.309\/.365 for a wRC+ of 80. The Red Sox put him on waivers in 2023, with the Washington Nationals claiming him for a brief period. A shortstop, third baseman and second baseman, Downs appeared in six games for Washington hitting .400 with two stolen bases. He was designated for assignment in December.<\/p>\n<p>Downs spent most of the 2023 season in the minors, batting .222 with three home runs, 20 RBI and 11 steals in 60 combined games with Triple-A Rochester, the FCL Nationals and High-A Wilmington. Born three years after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jeterde01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Derek Jeter<\/a>&#8216;s debut, Downs has said that he was named after Jeter by his mother.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from Downs&#8217; release, the Yankees have been active in just about every facet of the trade market. They landed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chishja01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jazz Chisholm Jr.<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/27\/yankees-acquire-chisholm-marlins-andrew-wagner\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">from the Miami Marlins<\/a> and will look to add more. Among the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/28\/yankees-dodgers-pursuing-isaac-paredes-trade\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">club&#8217;s targets<\/a> are infielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/diazya01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yandy Diaz<\/a> and pitchers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/snellbl01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Blake Snell<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/flaheja01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jack Flaherty<\/a>. Adding some infield help only makes sense for the Yankees as veterans <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/torregl01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gleyber Torres<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lemahdj01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DJ LeMahieu<\/a> have struggled all season.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: \u00a9 Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday, the New York Yankees announced that infielder Jeter Downs will leave the team to join Japan&#8217;s Fukuoka SoftBank Hanks, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. Downs, 25, was once a former top prospect, having been selected 32nd overall by the Cincinnati Reds in 2017. His time in the minor leagues saw him play for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3686,"featured_media":81742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1071,35],"tags":[1122,3207,5149,3350,2496],"class_list":["post-81738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-yankees","category-mlb","category-news","tag-blake-snell","tag-jack-flaherty","tag-jazz-chisholm-jr","tag-jeter-downs","tag-yandy-diaz"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3686"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}