The last time we saw Greg Allen in pinstripes, he was ducking the tag against the Diablos Rojos in the Yankees’ season precursor series in Mexico City (we don’t want to talk about it).

May be an image of 4 people and text

Allen, signed on Jan. 30 for depth purposes, will make $1.1 million this season if he’s elevated to the big-league roster. Unfortunately for Allen, he’s getting further away from that possibility.

In a move that’s sure to bug any player with an upward mobility clause, the outfielder was reinstated from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s injured list on Wednesday morning and … demoted to the Somerset Patriots. Yes, even after the Yankees traded Brandon Lockridge to San Diego and decreased their Triple-A outfield depth.

Allen’s contract purportedly included clauses dictating that, if the Yankees didn’t intend to promote him to MLB by May 15 and June 15 and another team did, New York would have to waive him and clear a path towards those opportunities. That never happened, and now he’s riding the wrong kind of shuttle.

The @Yankees have announced that Greg Allen has been reinstated from the @swbrailriders 7-Day IL and transferred to Somerset. pic.twitter.com/YO0JefAVgv

— Somerset Patriots (@SOMPatriots) August 7, 2024

Allen’s been a Yankee several times before, to varying degrees of success. In 15 games in 2021, he starred during a COVID wave, hitting .270 with an .849 OPS/136 OPS+ in a tiny sample size. That likelyled to his return during an injury ravaged 2023, where he posted an .812 OPS/119 OPS+ overall in 22 games, but notably found himself injured just 10 appearances into his first run, pulling up lame at Dodger Stadium.

This season, Allen did representative work in Scranton, hitting .261 with a .384 OBP and an .819 OPS, but now finds himself sliding down the ladder instead of flexing his upward mobility. It’s tough to ask for much more from someone who’s a known commodity just trying to hang on below the big-league surface. Something tells us Allen won’t be thrilled to be moving backward, but … if there were another MLB team interested, he would’ve been gone months ago. Sorry. Tough break.