7 Yankees who are fighting for their futures heading into 2024 season

Giancarlo Stanton

Feels like this is it for Big G, right? If the Yankees want to maximize their current window with Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole still in their primes, they simply cannot lock Stanton into the DH spot for another THREE years (from 2025-2027).

Conveniently enough, here comes the Marlins subsidizing as part of the trade agreement back in 2017. Miami will kick in $30 million across Stanton's final three years, which brings his AAV down to just $22 million from 2025-2027 (and that includes his $10 million buyout in 2028). Yeah, terrible trade, terrible contract, terrible everything.

Not Stanton's fault, though. The Yankees knew what they were getting into when they acquired a 28-year-old with a lengthy injury history who had just signed the largest contract in North American sports history at the time of the trade. New York has gotten 2.5 serviceable seasons out of the slugger, and the other 3.5 have been dreadful thanks to injuries and overall poor offensive play.

Again, Yankees fans would love nothing more than to see Stanton succeed and be Judge's bash brother, but it just hasn't worked out. The two have spent more time not in the lineup together, in fact.

Over his last 211 games (2022 and 2023), Stanton is batting .201 with a sub-.300 on-base percentage. That's just downright unacceptable, and if he's not logging reps on defense, he can't be occupying a spot in the lineup that would otherwise help the Yankees exercise more flexibility.

If Stanton can't improve or stay on the field in 2024, we'd bet he'll either be released or traded come the offseason.