Nick Swisher signs minor league deal to return to Yankees
A little over three years after a departure that didn’t take place on the best of terms, Nick Swisher is headed back to the New York Yankees.
The team announced Saturday that Swisher was joining the team on a minor league deal.
Yankees announce they've signed former Indians 1B Nick Swisher to a minor league contract. Atlanta released Swish at the end of ST.
— paul hoynes (@hoynsie) April 9, 2016
A source said Nick Swisher's minor-league contract with the Yankees will include a June 15 opt-out if he is still at Triple-A.
— Mark Feinsand (@FeinsandNYDN) April 9, 2016
Swisher’s career has been a long, strange trip since his departure. He joined the Cleveland Indians in 2013, where his numbers dropped but he was a part of a playoff team. Injuries have cost him dearly over the past two seasons, limiting him to just 173 games in which he struggled mightily, hitting .204 with minimal power. He was traded to Atlanta in a salary dump move in 2015, and they released him during spring training. He’s now 35 and little more than a depth signing for the Yankees.
Swisher departed the Yankees as a free agent after 2012, in which he struggled mightily during the playoffs and reacted poorly to being booed at home. Still, he thinks enough of New York to head back there, so he must not have too many hard feelings.