4 blowup trades Yankees must consider if Aaron Judge is ruled out for 2023

Once upon a time, we preached patience with the 2023 New York Yankees. They started the year incredibly injured and managed to remain in the hunt, rather impressively, with reinforcements on the way and four months of the season remaining.

But then Aaron Judge got injured and everything fell apart. Sure, the Yankees haven't fallen off their pace in disgraceful fashion, but they're not winning impressively and they're losing embarrassingly. They aren't supposed to look this futile without one guy, even if he is the MVP.

Assuming none of this corrects itself (because it never does, despite that being the Yankees' primary philosophy), we're going to go ahead and say the front office should do its best to blow things up as much as possible at the trade deadline. If this team isn't a contender in 2023 and the supporting cast around Judge isn't good enough, then why would that change in 2024 with the same people?

Fans already gave it a chance from 2022 into 2023. There were enough growing pains in 2022 for the patience to be razor thin if it all appeared to get worse mere months later after a fresh start.

So if this continues and Judge's timeline becomes more and more ominous, why not kickstart the retool process as early as August 1?

4 blowup trades Yankees must consider if Aaron Judge injury timeline worsens

Package a top prospect with Josh Donaldson or DJ LeMahieu/subsidize their departure

Josh Donaldson is coming off the books after the 2023 season, but it'd be good business to get rid of him sooner, particularly if it didn't cost the Yankees more than what they're comfortable with.

DJ LeMahieu is here through 2026, which, in hindsight, looks like a massive mistake (even though we can probably attribute last year's toe injury to his 2023 disappearing act).

For all the teams out there with a bit of money to blow, why wouldn't they be open to taking on either of these players for some younger talent? Why wouldn't they take on these contracts at a discounted rate? Since the Yankees are probably more hesitant on paying down what's owed to Donaldson and DJ, we'll assume attaching a top prospect with one (or both) of them is the move.

Brian Cashman had zero problem emptying the top end of the farm system last year for middling talent and injured players. Why wouldn't he conduct a version of that this time to save money and get a better outlook/headstart on 2024?

Plunder the Bullpen: Michael King should be on the table

If Michael King's worst stretch of play since 2021 when the Yankees needed him most over the last month didn't slightly change your opinion on the right-hander, then maybe you were hypnotized by his fairly short stretch of consistent effectiveness.

King is good, there's no doubt, but he very much doesn't have a lengthy track record to unequivocally warrant him as the future of the bullpen. He owns a 3.60 ERA, 3.41 FIP and 1.20 WHIP in 93 career games. Solid. Not untradeable. Not a cornerstone.

He has two years of team control left and will undoubtedly carry heftier salaries in 2024 and 2025. His value will never be higher. The Yankees print high-end relief pitching. Why not capitalize on a market that's always desperate for pitching and then re-tool the bullpen, something that's been a constant positive for this team since Mariano Rivera's departure?

Same goes for everybody else. Wandy Peralta is in a contract year and he's probably not coming back. Send him out and get value. If you can get anything for Albert Abreu, do it. Clay Holmes has only one full year left of control and he won't be cheap in 2024 (he's making $3.3 million this year). Don't trade all of them, but at least two of those guys should be dealt to save some money and replenish some value elsewhere. The Yankees did this in a more extreme fashion back in 2016 and then immediately returned to the ALCS the next year.

Offer to eat $30 million to ship Giancarlo Stanton out

It's sad to say, but it's evident Giancarlo Stanton's best days are far in the rearview. He returned from the IL on June 2 and still can't play every day. So what's the point? Why even entertain the remote possibility he'll remain a fixture in this lineup through 2027?

When Stanton's hot, this Yankees team couldn't look better. When he's cold, this team looks its absolute worst. And he's been far more cold than hot ever since 2019. He's hamstrung the flexibility of the lineup being locked into the DH spot with his constant injury troubles giving the Yankees hesitation about using him in the outfield -- and he needs to play defense, because it directly correlates to a positive uptick in his offense.

If you're paying Stanton the full price of admission ($26 million AAV from now through 2027), you're at a loss. If you're being hesitant about using him on defense, you're at a loss. If he's on the IL, you're at a loss. So why not see if another team will take him at the deadline? If the Yankees toss $30 million in a deal to get rid of him, that makes Stanton a $17 million AAV player for the rest of his contract. Wouldn't a least a couple teams be willing to entertain that?

Maybe not. But there's no winning with Stanton on the Yankees. His inability to stay healthy has cost this team dearly (and it doesn't help that the Yankees' medical staff is arguably the worst in the sport). If he can't play regularly when he's healthy, then what's the point? If the team is going to continually proceed with caution with somebody they view as a key component of their lineup, then they're doing it wrong. Either he's contributing 100% or not.

The bottom line is one of the supposed best hitters in the league can't be holding a team back for this many reasons. The sooner the Yankees can free up this money assuming things progressively go south, the better off they'll be for it as they figure out their future outlook with Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole atop the payroll.

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