8 players on Yankees 40-man roster who don't deserve a role in 2024

Trying to find the dead weight on the Yankees' 40-man roster is like trying to find shells on the beach. Oh, look, over there! Yeah, that one! Oop, that's a shell! It's very easy, is the point being communicated here.

The 2023 Yankees have found an interesting stride right at the end of a lost season after promoting Jasson Dominguez, Austin Wells, Everson Pereira and Oswald Peraza to join Anthony Volpe. They shouldn't enter 2024 riding too high and feeling like their offseason work's already done, though. Champions aren't entirely youth-based. The Yankees need depth, for chemistry purposes and as annually necessary injury insurance. The Yankees need bullpen and rotation arms. The Yankees need so much big-league talent to sustain themselves over a full season, rather than an (admittedly fantastic) nine-game stretch against the Tigers and Astros.

Even being generous, an initial sweep of the current 40-man roster reveals a large amount of clear upgrade opportunities -- not to mention the free agents who'll soon be leaving.

The Free Agent Departures Who'll Help Clear Spaces

These guys don't even technically belong in this exercise, but just to give you the full scope of which players you can expect to depart the Yankees' 40-man roster this spring, we'll add Frankie Montas, Wandy Peralta, Keynan Middleton, Luis Severino, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. It's highly unlikely any of the five return, giving the Yankees 12 obvious spaces to fill (our projection has them dropping someone currently on the 60-Day IL). They should be able to both acquire big-league talent and protect prospects to their heart's content.

As for the other eight spots they should be able to clear relatively easily...

8 current Yankees on 40-man roster who probably will not be back

Albert Abreu, RHP

The Yankees are so addicted to both Albert Abreu and Being Right that they went out of their way to bring the right-hander back last summer after they dealt him away in the Jose Trevino trade. When that occurred, there was plenty of chatter, most of it involving the word "unlocked/unlock/unlocking." Imagine what Abreu -- who'd just been in the Yankees' system for years -- could do in the Yankees' system, typed a bunch of pretentious, never-wrong number crunchers.

Well ... what more do you need to see? Abreu's a 4.50+ ERA guy with tantalizing stuff. He can occasionally enter and convert a save, leaving you surprised and appreciative. He can usually leave his 99 MPH fastballs middle-middle, allowing hard contact for days. He has a 1.47 WHIP, at the moment, and has allowed 10 earned runs and walked 9 in his past 7 outings, totaling 11.1 innings.

Albert Abreu is not a good pitcher. You can harbor him in your system for only so long. The Yankees can do better.

Franchy Cordero, OF

Eh. Sorry. But it's unbelievable that Franchy Cordero has been in the Yankees' system -- and available for promotion -- this entire season. His career with the Bombers started in strange fashion, signed mysteriously while Estevan Florial was on the MLB roster for Opening Day, biding his time before the axe came down.

Florial pinch ran in Game 1 of 162, then was never heard from again, left to his own devices to rake at Triple-A. Cordero? He was Boston's long-term project and Baltimore's spring training hero, but the Yankees were the only team to reap the big-league benefits of his burly frame this season.

Ultimately, with no further playing time in sight, it seems he'll wrap his Yankees career with 13 hits in 69 at-bats, six of them homers. A deeply odd player who no one's managed to figure out yet, and no one who has any right to steal reps -- at any level -- from the Yankees' legitimate prospects.

Billy McKinney, OF

McKinney was, for a time, the Yankees' most consistent offensive contributor. He also hits from the left side of that plate. It was fantastic that the Month of McKinney happened. That said ... I don't think he turned his career around in any sort of permanent way, and his .188 July/.184 August seem to reflect that.

If there's any way for the 2024 Yankees to retain McKinney as Triple-A depth, that would be fantastic. He's a plus defender with a nose for the porch. He came through far more often than any non-regular Yankees viewer would've noticed. He was deserving of an emergency call-up and 40-man scramble when the opportunity arrived. But he shouldn't be guaranteed a big-league roster spot in New York entering camp next year.

Kyle Higashioka

Higashioka deserves the world, but he doesn't make much sense on any version of the 2024 Yankees' roster, especially with Ben Rortvedt at Triple-A as an emergency catcher (and Ben Rice and Agustin Ramirez, presumably, looming behind).

It will take a non-tender to get Higashioka off the 2024 roster and into free agency, but carrying three catchers makes no sense over the course of a 162-game season, let alone four. Two of Wells, Rortvedt, Higgy, and Jose Trevino have to go (or go to the minors) by the time the curtain rises next year. The Yankees have dedicated themselves to Wells' development this fall, and sending him to Triple-A to begin the season would seem foolish. Trevino, a 2022 All-Star and Platinum Glove winner, shouldn't go anywhere once he's fully recovered from wrist surgery. If the Yankees need some insurance at the position, they have a good deal of talent in the upper minors (add Carlos Narvaez to that list). That's a good thing, but it also represents a logjam they have to clear out soon, and making Wells' promotion permanent should do just that.

Higashioka, who grew up with Gerrit Cole and grew up in the system with Aaron Judge, has been a very fun Yankee. He's in the midst of his best season, which began with a ride on Team USA's bench in the World Baseball Classic, then featured a 10-bomb power surge. He's eligible for arbitration again next season, his final year of control before he enters free agency. Expect the Yankees to do what they couldn't bear to with Gary Sánchez and non-tender Higashioka with plenty of time on the clock for him to find a new home.