Good afternoon everyone, it’s time to dive back into the mailbag and answer some of your questions. Remember to send in your questions for our weekly call by e-mail to pinstripealleyblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

Long Time, First Time asks: Nearing the season’s quarter pole, how about a check in on Giancarlo Stanton. How is he doing relative to our expectations? I’d say this is a pretty good outcome. Prob 50th percentile quantitatively, but like 75th percentile vibes-wise. Curious to hear everyone’s thoughts.

I’d say this is mostly an acceptable form for the 2024 version of Stanton so far — a .734 OPS with eight homers and a marginally positive 0.1 fWAR from the full-time DH across 34 games is probably better than some were expecting after his poor 2023 season. He’s hitting to a 109 wRC+, so he’s performing slightly above-average and just a bit below where he was in 2022, when he went on some mighty cold stretches but also had some clutch moments with the long ball.

What’s concerning, however, is Stanton’s strikeout-to-walk ratio: he’s walking at a career-low 7.3 percent while K’ing at a career-worst 35.8 percent. Stanton’s been on a bit of a heater as of late, so perhaps he can level this off, but long-term I’m worried that he trends closer to 2023 form than 2022 — the only upside is that the Yankees don’t need him to be their cleanup hitter anymore.

Cabrera stepped in and gave the team valuable depth right out of the gate, but I don’t think he’s done enough to justify taking the starting job over the incumbent LeMahieu once he returns. Cabrera got out to a super hot start, and while he hasn’t been an outright anchor since, his .530 OPS over his last 20 games have leveled him out to a perfectly-average bat on the whole — which is nothing to scoff at, but also not going to push the needle for him.

Cabrera will get playing time, likely at the expense of Jon Berti’s role as the utility man, but he’ll probably be the one rotating to cover positions more than LeMahieu does. Now, when exactly will LeMahieu return and spark this shake-up? That is a better question and one which the Yankees don’t exactly have an answer just yet.

BigYankeeFan asks: Guess the Yanks were right not to extend Gleyber Torres. How much money is he losing in FA with this current performance vs. last year?

It’s painful watching Torres’ continued struggles. Every projection still expects him to turn things around and end up being a solid contributor for the lineup, but it’s getting harder and harder to believe it as another week passes with him continuing to trudge along. The complete lack of power in his game has collapsed his value, especially considering his poor defense hasn’t been alleviated enough and his baserunning gaffes have popped up with consistency.

Back in early March, I talked about the kind of contract Torres could potentially earn if he lived up to his projections and built off of his rebound 2023. It’s safe to say that while he already was an underdog to earn the kind of contract that would put him near the top five-ten second basemen, that won’t be happening barring a miraculous turnaround now. Instead, Torres is trending towards the Gary Sánchez route of walking after his arbitration years and looking for a team to bet on him, which would be a disappointing turn for another promising Baby Bomber career.

FloridaPlace asks: Should Gleyber go back to wearing glasses? I see him off the field at basketball games wearing them. And there is this.

At this point, I’d take anything that can right the ship. I’m all for the return of Glasses Gleyber.