Giancarlo Stanton Will Join Yankees (and Aaron Judge), Reports Say

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For two years, the Yankees moved deftly through an uncharacteristic rebuilding process, establishing a growing nucleus of inexpensive and talented young players that seemed to defy the team’s long-established identity as one of the biggest spenders in baseball.

But always lurking below the surface was the signature desire to bust open the vault and grab the best, and most expensive, player available. And now the Yankees have done just that.

On Saturday, they reverted to form by agreeing to a trade with the Miami Marlins for Giancarlo Stanton, the slugging outfielder and reigning National League most valuable player. Stanton, 28, hit 59 home runs last season, the most in the major leagues since 2001, and he is still guaranteed $295 million through 2028 under the terms of the mammoth 13-year deal he signed with the Marlins in 2014.

The deal is not yet official, and the particulars have yet to be revealed, but it appears the Yankees will now have the two most intimidating sluggers in the game — Stanton and Aaron Judge — in the same lineup.

All this came about because Stanton’s contract became too much for the financially struggling Marlins to bear. When a new ownership group, which includes the former Yankees star Derek Jeter, took over the Marlins franchise over the summer, it quickly concluded that the smart move would be to send Stanton elsewhere and get out from under the fiscal burden of his contract.

Initially, the Yankees, who came within one victory of reaching the World Series last season, were not considered a likely destination for Stanton.

After all, they had a Stanton-like player in Judge, who hit 52 home runs in his rookie season this year and, like Stanton, is a physically imposing right-handed-hitting corner outfielder. Unlike Stanton, Judge, 25, is still new to the major leagues and makes virtually nothing by baseball standards.

So the Yankees basically stood to the side and watched as Jeter and the Marlins tried, at first, to deal Stanton to other clubs.

Stanton was believed to have met recently with representatives of the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals to facilitate a deal. But on Friday, those clubs announced that Stanton, who has a full no-trade clause, had vetoed their trade proposals.

Instead, it was believed that Stanton had narrowed the list of teams he would be willing to play for to four — the Yankees, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Chicago Cubs and the world champion Houston Astros.

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As Friday progressed into Saturday, the Yankees emerged as the Marlins’ partner in a deal. Whom they will send to Miami in exchange for Stanton was not immediately clear, but it was expected to be a package of prospects — although apparently not the Yankees’ most highly rated ones — and perhaps second baseman Starlin Castro.

What the deal will now do to the Yankees’ stated desire to keep their 2018 payroll under the 2018 luxury tax threshold of $197 million remains to be seen. Stanton is due to make $25 million next season.

Meanwhile, the 6-foot-6 Stanton now joins the 6-7 Judge to form the most physically imposing lineup in baseball. Both hit balls well over 400 feet with regularity. The sluggers will even have a sidekick of sorts in catcher Gary Sanchez, who, like Judge, is 25. A right-handed hitter as well, Sanchez hit 20 home runs in his limited rookie debut in 2016 and then 33 more last season.

Stanton and Judge are primarily right fielders, but they could be moved among designated hitter, right field and left field in conjunction with Brett Gardner, the current left fielder. Stanton has played 942 games in right field, but none in left.

Although he has played in the major leagues for eight years and hit 267 career home runs, Stanton turned 28 only a month ago and could be just entering his prime. He has had injuries, including a frightening incident in which he was hit in the face with a pitch from Mike Fiers of the Milwaukee Brewers in September 2014.

The next season he broke the hamate bone in his left wrist and played 74 games, but still hit 27 home runs, some of them record setters for distances.

He is credited with hitting the longest home runs at Citi Field in Queens and in Miami, and in 2015, he hit a ball over the left-field pavilion at Dodger Stadium, only the fifth time that has occurred.

Born in Panorama City, Calif., just north of Los Angeles, Stanton attended Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks and was drafted by the Marlins in the second round in 2007. He spent parts of four seasons in the minors before being called up on June 8, 2010, and collected three hits in his debut in Philadelphia. Ten days later, he hit his first home run, a shot off Matt Garza of the Tampa Bay Rays at the Marlins’ old stadium in Miami Gardens.

He has a career batting average of .268, and his on-base plus slugging percentage is .914. He has led the National League in slugging percentage three times, including last season with a .631 mark, and in 2014 he led the league in total bases (299), home runs (37), slugging (.555) and intentional walks (24) despite missing the final two weeks of the season after being struck by the pitch from Fiers.

The Yankees’ deal for Stanton comes less than a week after the team was rebuffed in its pursuit of Shohei Ohtani, a relatively inexpensive two-way player from Japan, who instead signed with the Los Angeles Angels on Friday.

Ohtani has been compared to Babe Ruth because he can pitch and hit with almost equal skill. The last major league player to have as many plate appearances and pitch as many innings as Ohtani averaged in Japan was Babe Ruth in 1919.

The Yankees would surely have liked to sign Ohtani, particularly because of his link to Ruth, a Yankees icon. But instead they now have Stanton, a player who is Ruth-like in so many ways.