Detroit Tigers should bring in Stephen Vogt as Victor Martinez fill-in

Stephen Vogt

The former All-Star was recently designated for assignment by the Oakland Athletics.

Oakland announced the move in a tweet on the team’s official Twitter account on Thursday morning.

The A’s tweeted:

"“#Athletics designate Stephen Vogt for assignment; place Matt Chapman on the DL; recall Bruce Maxwell and Matt Olson from Nashville.”"

Vogt, who per Spotrac has a $2.965 million salary for this season, would be an ideal waiver claim candidate.

Given the Detroit Tigers’ low place in the standings, the team should be using this opportunity to acquire useful pieces on waivers to help the team turn things around for the rest of the campaign.

Vogt could be one of those pieces.

Only Oakland and Chicago are below Detroit in terms of records.

In this scenario, the Tigers would only need the White Sox to pass on Vogt given that the A’s were the team to designate him for assignment.

The backstop struggled somewhat this season (73 wRC+, .278 wOBA), but he carries an excellent track record.

From 2014 to 2016, the 32-year-old hit .261 with a .322 on-base percentage, a .425 slugging percentage and a .747 OPS. He averaged 54 RBI, 46 runs scored, 20 doubles, 14 home runs and two triples in 119 games per year in that span.

In the same three-year period, Vogt notched wRC+ numbers of 115, 116 and 93 respectively.