After just one season with the New York Yankees—during which the team reached the World Series for the 41st time—28-year-old is expected to secure another lucrative contract, especially after earning a career-best $9.2 million that year. But that deal never materialized. The Yankees showed no interest in bringing him back, and he remained unsigned until the final week of spring training, when the Atlanta Braves offered him a one-year, $1.5 million contract and immediately assigned him to the minors. Whether he’d make it back to the majors was uncertain.
That changed when Jurickson Profar, a high-profile $42 million addition to the Braves, tested positive for a banned substance and was hit with an 80-game suspension.
