NL Wild Card contender cuts Red Sox in line and signs ex-Yankees first baseman

The New York Yankees know better than any team that you can never have too much viable depth, even at positions of strength. At this particular moment in time, though ... they do have too much viable depth to consider an upward mobility clause for any first basemen/DH, no matter how well they're hitting down in Scranton.

Ben Rice has been a revelation. Paul Goldschmidt's numbers against lefties look like prime Barry Bonds. Aaron Judge, Trent Grisham and Jasson Domínguez tend to rotate through the DH spot. Giancarlo Stanton believes he'll be back soon, too. That made granting Dom Smith's release to pursue an external big-league opportunity an easy call, even if it pained us to see him go (and even if it seemed like he probably was about to fill Triston Casas' role with the Red Sox, a team he fit in nicely with in 2024).

Plot twist, though! The Red Sox sat out his short free agency, while the San Francisco Giants chose to DFA a struggling LaMonte Wade Jr. in order to accommodate Smith on Wednesday afternoon.

Smith will join the big-league Giants, and will wear No. 7, which we're pretty sure got Clint Frazier thrown out of New York a half-decade ago (kidding).

Former Yankees Triple-A first baseman Dominic Smith joins San Francisco Giants over Boston Red Sox

Smith surged ahead in spring training for the Yankees this year, but slowly saw his lead on the final roster spot whittled away for multiple reasons. Ben Rice emerged as an essential piece of the team (and the Yankees' hunch was proven correct here). Pablo Reyes' versatility gave him an edge, and even though he hasn't been terribly impactful to start the year, it made sense and still does. The Yankees struggled to trade an option-less Oswald Peraza, so he stuck around (and we're glad he remains an option).

That left Smith no choice but to opt out ... though he eventually cycled back and returned to the Yankees, reporting to Scranton. While there, he scuffled through April, hitting .193 with a single home run, before hitting a torrid pace in May, hitting .317 with seven bombs and 22 RBI in the month to raise his full-season average up to .255.

The Giants liked what they saw, and were growing ever more impatient with Wade Jr., who carried them for portions of 2021, but has lost his footing recently. Hopefully, for Smith, he's an upgrade and gets to help a push towards a Wild Card (or decides to help his teammates shoot even higher). Glad he's not a Red Sox (though Abraham Toro and Romy Gonzalez are apparently very good, so what are you going to do?).