Stanton was never in the cards. He was going to the Yankees, per Jeter. Sure, they made some end runs using the Giants and Cardinals. Meetings, etc while Stanton was saying Yankees, Dodgers, Astros, Cubs.
Stanton never really rejected the Cardinals and Giants. All of a sudden, Dee Gordon was traded to Seattle, and the next day Stanton went to the Yankees for Castro and a couple of throw-ins. Just like that. Gordon and Castro's salaries balance, saving Jeter nothing, plus he threw in another $30 mil to the Yankees to keep them under the cap. He wound up paying a third of Stanton's salary in NY for the next 5 years. Sweetheart deal.
Hard to see that wasn't the plan at the start. They just needed to make it less obvious.
So now the attention shifts to JDM. Boras is making the Red Sox sweat a bit. JDM says he wants to play the OF, not DH. The big headline in all those NY based sports outlets. The Boston Herald, largely negative on the Red Sox, NY style, since Red Sox owner Henry owns their competition, the Globe. BTW, is that a conflict of interest?
What's missing here is Boras and JDM know darn well they can squeeze more years out of the Red Sox than the Giants or DBacks because of the DH. And he can get plenty of OF play platooning against LHP for Benintendi or JBJ. Lots of versatility in that OF.
You can bet Boras will make that argument to squeeze max years and dollars out of the Red Sox. Which is what he is all about.