As offseasons go, this had been a slow one, with none of the top free agents finding new homes and only a couple of trades with any long-term significance. A big part of that reason was this month's big fantasy drama: the Quest for Giancarlo Stanton. After more than a week of the Cardinals and Giants unsuccessfully trying to persuade the reigning NL MVP to sanctify arrangements with the Marlins, the Yankees swept in at the last second and finally got the thumbs-up.
We talked a lot about Stanton's possible new homes in our feature late last month discussing the benefits and hurdles to a Stanton acquisition for 10 teams, including the Giants, Cardinals and Yankees.
New York's challenge coming into this trade was -- unusually for the Yankees -- a payroll issue. The team would very much like to get below the luxury-tax threshold for a year because of some craggy rules in the collective bargaining agreement that are too long to go into here. However, the Yankees figured out how to avoid this obstacle by sending Starlin Castro and his $10 million 2018 salary to Miami, resulting in just a $15 million boost to the payroll next season. This leaves the Yankees some room to do other things this offseason.
If you look at the included projections for Stanton in Yankee Stadium for the next decade and compare the projections to those for the other teams that actually ended up in the Stanton running, you'll see one very interesting thing: Stanton's projected value is greater in New York than in any of the other likely destinations projected.
One thing that is sometimes overlooked about park effects is that they don't affect each player in the same way; a player's park-neutral measures like OPS+ or WAR will not be the same in every park. ZiPS uses four-year park effects when projecting players, with the most recent years weighed more heavily than older years.
Yankee Stadium projects to be a fairly neutral park overall in 2018 based on recent years, with a run factor of 1.02, meaning that there are approximately 2 percent more runs scored in Yankees games at Yankee Stadium than in Yankees games away from Yankee Stadium.
But 2 percent doesn't tell the story of how Yankee Stadium affects home run hitting. That 2 percent does not mean that all offensive numbers go up by 2 percent, but that some go up and some go down. Yankee Stadium suppresses singles, doubles and triples. But one thing that there are a lot of in Yankee Stadium is home runs. ZiPS projects a 1.29 park factor for home runs in Yankee Stadium, the largest number in baseball. What this means, essentially, is a player with a league-average distribution of abilities will see their numbers go up by 1 percent (only half the games are played at home) in Yankee Stadium.
Giancarlo Stanton, however, is not that player. One of the top sluggers in baseball when healthy, a large part of Stanton's value comes from his ability to hit home runs. Yankee Stadium fits Stanton like a glove, which makes him more valuable in New York than in most places. The AL East is a tougher division than the NL East, but it also has two other solid home run parks (Camden Yards projected at 1.18 for homers, Rogers Centre at 1.07).
So how does this affect New York's bottom-line wins? The Yankees have said that they intend to rotate the DH spot among their three corner outfielders -- Stanton, Aaron Judge and Brett Gardner -- most likely depending on who needs the rest. Center field will likely be Aaron Hicks with some Clint Frazier, with Jacoby Ellsbury being the league's most expensive fourth outfielder unless his salary is dumped elsewhere. The Yankees aren't upgrading from anybody who was replacement level -- Ellsbury was still a league-average player in 2017 -- but Stanton, if he's healthy, still represents a five-win upgrade for the team.
Prior to the Stanton trade, ZiPS projected the Yankees to have a mean 2018 projection of 92 wins, with a 59 percent chance of winning the AL East, an 87 percent chance of making the playoffs and a 12 percent chance of winning the World Series. With Stanton, that mean projection jumps to 97 wins, the top projection in baseball, edging out the Los Angeles Dodgers. Their projected chance of winning the AL East shoots to 80 percent, with their playoff odds jumping to 97 percent, and an 18 percent shot at winning the World Series. Half the gain in those divisional odds comes from the Boston Red Sox, who now may need to be more aggressive than they otherwise intended to be three days ago.
The Yankees are, of course, not guaranteed to win 97 games and crush the AL East in 2018, but fortune favors the bold. And you'd be hard-pressed to do anything bolder than adding 2017's best home run hitter with the league's largest contract to 2017's best home run team.