LAS VEGAS — The Winter Meetings opened in this gambling capital a year to the day after the Yankees made a greater than $200 million bet that is iffy to ever fully pay off.
The Yankees reached an agreement in principle to obtain Giancarlo Stanton from the Marlins on Dec. 9, 2017, making the deal official at a Winter Meetings press conference at a Disney World hotel a few days later.
The Yankees had just months earlier made the final payment on Alex Rodriguez’s 10-year extension. They had spoken in those days as if they were being paroled from jail.