Opinion: If your $1 over, be $40M over, The Yankees need to be all in

Trent Grisham accepting the qualifying offer Tuesday sent Yankees Nation into an absolute tailspin.

The New York Post reported last week that Hal Steinbrenner would like to keep the Yankees payroll to below $300M for the 2026 season, a goal he has looked to achieve for years. According to Spotrac, the current Yankee payroll is at $284,238,333.

If the Yankees are looking to compete, that is no longer possible.

Currently, the Yankees have a list of needs, including another starter, a reliever of two who can pitch in the final 6 outs of a game, an outfielder (yes, still), and a bench piece.

Grisham accepting the QO will not stop the Yankees pursuit of outfielder Cody Bellinger. Bellinger provides defensive versatility and played a very successful season in the Bronx. He was a perfect fit at Yankee Stadium, with drastic Home/Road spits (below) that might affect his market. Still, the Mets, Blue Jays, and Dodgers are expected to pursue the slugger. That should not, and will not stop the Yankees.

Credit: BaseballReference

My take on the issue is if you need to go over at all, just go all in. Stop penny pinching. Call it what it is, having both Bellinger and Grisham in your outfield, while having one of Spencer Jones or Jasson Domínguez in AAA as depth makes the Yankees a better team.

If the Yankees do sign Bellinger back, it makes one of Jones or Dominguez expendable in trade, which Brian Cashman alluded to last week.

“If one of those guys comes back, it creates nice competition,” Cashman said. “If both come back, then maybe it creates trade flexibility.”

If I were the Yankees, I would look to trade Jones over Domínguez. From the samples I have seen, Domínguez has more of what the Yankees need for the future, like more contact and switch hitting, than Jones, a lefty slugger with a ton of strikeouts.

Still, I would expect whichever of the two players to appear on the MLB roster in 2025 when the inevitable Stanton injury pops up. Depth is a good thing, but you can have too much of it.

The Yankees have some big needs, and other teams have things to offer. Perhaps the Yankees can rekindle their talks with the Marlins that occurred at the 2025 trade deadline surrounding Sandy Alcantara. Marlins ownership prefers to keep the former Cy-Young winner, but the Yankees have the pieces to make an offer they simply can't refuse.

The Yankees were also listed by ESPN as one of a few teams that have the pieces to acquire reigning Cy-Young winner Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers. If the Tigers listen, the Yankees should go all in and get the ace that can put this team over the top. The risk -- it's a 1-year deal essentially. The Yankees also have the funds to keep him in pinstripes long-term.

The Yankees should still be expected to be in the market for Tatsuya Imai. Imai will not be a one-year player for the Yankees. If he signs with the Yankees, he will be here long-term. If the Yankees are smart, they do what they did with the Fried contract and backload the deal, lowering the AAV in the first season or two, then raise the AAV much higher to compensate.

The relief market and bench market are more fluid because parts can be acquired via trade, or likely won't command a big deal.

If the Yankees want to get Kazuma Okamoto, they can follow the same outline I laid out above for Imai. The Yankees could also take a page out of the Dodgers book and defer a ton of the money for any player they acquire.

The bottom line is, if the Yankees go over the tax, they need to go way over and truly go all in to win a championship.