1. It’s hard to care about the Yankees until Juan Soto is signed, whether it’s with the Yankees or not. The entire elite free-agent market is on hold until Soto comes off the board, and therefore, the 2025 plans for the Yankees and every other team that is in on Soto are on hold until he signs.
There is nothing worse than the MLB Hot Stove. The amount of sourced, rumored and exaggerated reports are annoying and tiresome … every single year. No one knows a fucking thing about where Soto is going to sign outside of Soto, his family and Scott Boras, and it’s possible none of them know and won’t know until the bids start coming in. I’m sure Soto knows where he wants to play and hopes that team is the highest bidder, but there isn’t a reporter or fan who has any idea of what’s going to happen with him or how much he’s actually going to sign for.
And with that let’s get to some questions from readers …
2. I know you feel strongly about re-signing Soto (as in you won’t follow the team anymore if they don’t). But hypothetically if they don’t sign him, what would be the best use of the money they’ll save on him and the others they’ll release based on this years free-agent class? – Chris
I have made my stance clear about the Yankees and Soto: re-sign him or I’m out. I will gladly resell my season tickets on the secondary market if he goes elsewhere. I’m not going to stick around to watch Aaron Boone manage the team for an eighth season with the faces of the franchise being Mr. May, who can’t hit or catch routine fly balls in the World Series, or Big Game Gerrit, who couldn’t have given less of an effort to cover first base in the inning that currently defines both of their careers.
The only way Soto leaves and I stay is if the Yankees pull off blockbuster trades to improve the offense and go to town on the free-agent starting pitching market. But there’s a better chance Soto ends up signing with the Red Sox than there is that that backup plan comes to fruition if Soto leaves.
3. Fourteen years ago, the Yankees were trying to sign Cliff Lee to fortify their rotation after not trading for him that summer because they didn’t want to include Eduardo Nunez in the deal. The same Eduardo Nunez, who, four years later would be released by the team for nothing in spring training, and then four years after that, helped the Red Sox beat the Yankees in the ALDS and win the World Series.
Back then, the Yankees didn’t have a Plan B if Lee signed elsewhere, and he did. He went to Philadelphia and the Yankees filled their rotation with Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia. By the time October came, Colon was hurt and Garcia was fatigued and ineffective. The Yankees went out in the first round. I wrote about the Yankees’ lack of a Plan B back then and I’m writing about their lack of a Plan B for Soto now.
4. The Yankees think they have a Plan B. We saw it begin to unfold at the end of last week when they non-tendered Jon Berti, but gave Trent Grisham $5 million. Why did they make those two moves? Well, not bringing back Berti freed up money for Soto, and bringing back Grisham allows him to potentially be their everyday center fielder if Soto goes elsewhere and Aaron Judge moves back to right. Why do you think Gleyber Torres and Alex Verdugo were held on to at the deadline? Why do you think Verdugo played over Jasson Dominguez and was never pinch hit for a single time by Dominguez in the playoffs? Because they are part of Plan B and the Yankees didn’t want to sour the relationships.
If Soto goes elsewhere, the money allocated from him will have to spent somehow. And then somehow is a combination of Torres and Verdugo and the Yankees going after free-agent bats like Pete Alonso, Teoscar Hernandez and Christian Walker and free-agent arms like Corbin Burnes, Slake Snell and Max Fried.
In actuality, there is no Plan B for the offense. The only plan this offseason for the offense is to re-sign the generational 26-year-old star and have him anchor the lineup for the better part of the next decade. Anything else is a letdown.
5. I know your posture on Soto, but realistically, if we had a better GM we could spend on better impact players with shorter contracts? – Douglas
I don’t think signing Soto to a 14- or 15-year deal is a bad business decision. Soto is a historic talent who may not have even entered his prime yet. Stocking up on the game’s best players increases your odds of wining. The first three hitters in the Dodgers’ lineup are all current and former MVPs. Two of them have exceedingly long contracts. That’s the price of doing business with top talent.
The Yankees’ trio of Soto, Judge and Giancarlo Stanton couldn’t hang with the Dodgers’ trio because Judge was such a zero, but remove Soto from the trio and you have a soon-to-be, 33-year-old Judge and a 35-year-old Stanton. Who becomes the third member of the trio? Alonso? Please, no. Anthony Volpe? Please hold your laughter. Austin Wells? Doubtful.
As of right now, the Yankees’ 2025 Opening Day position players will be Wells at catcher, either DJ LeMahieu, Oswaldo Cabrera or Ben Rice at first base, either LeMahieu, Cabrera, Jazz Chisholm or Caleb Durbin at second base, either Chisholm, LeMahieu or Cabrera at third base, Volpe at shortstop, Dominguez in left field, Grisham in center field and Judge in right field with Stanton as the designated hitter. I don’t know that a lineup featuring only those names keeps the Yankees’ consecutive season winning streak going.
6. We know what the Yankees are without Soto: a postseason-less team. We saw that in the last season without Soto in 2023. Without Soto in 2024, they certainly don’t win the division, and maybe aren’t a postseason team for the second straight year? It was Soto and Stanton who carried the Yankees in the ALDS and ALCS. It was Soto who had a 1.373 OPS against the Guardians and a 1.084 OPS against the Dodgers in the World Series. While Mr. May was striking out every at-bat, Soto hit the way he hit all year. He hit the way he has hit his entire career. Because there is no difference between regular-season Soto and postseason Soto. For the truly great ones, which he is, there is never a difference between their regular-season numbers and their postseason numbers.
Even more so, Soto cares deeply about winning, even for someone who has already won. It was Soto sitting in the dugout by himself staring out at the field watching the Dodgers celebrate their World Series win, while the rest of the Yankees had retreated to the clubhouse to listen to their manager (who still has never won anything as a player or manager) tell them how proud he is that they were embarrassed in the World Series, producing the single-worst defensive inning in the history of the Fall Classic.
7. How much is Cohen going to pay Soto? In my opinion, let him go and use the money to make a more rounded team. – Mike
To me, Soto is either going to sign with the Yankees or the Mets.
Last week, Hal said, “I’ve got ears. I know what’s expected of me.” I don’t know that Hal actually knows what’s expected of him, but we’re going to find out. The Yankees generate more revenue than any other team, and yet, they aren’t even in the top half of the league in terms of revenue-to-payroll ratio.
If the Yankees offer X and the Mets also offer X and Soto signs with the Mets, well there’s nothing you can do about it. (In that event, I wouldn’t walk away from the Yankees.) If the money is equal and Soto leaves, so be it, what can do you do? But if the Mets outbid the Yankees then that’s unacceptable. If you’re not going to go out of your way to sign Soto, who are you going to go out of your way to sign?
8. How did Boone manage to garner a second-place vote for AL Manager of the year? – Floyd
Knowing that the Yankees’ lack of ability to situationally hit and poor fundamentals keep getting exposed, what is being done to address the one defines that are the clearest weakness of this franchise? – Mark
Let’s lump these two together since they both have to do with the manager.
The first one is easy: Someone who never watches the Yankees play or is lazy or a combination of both voted for Boone.
As for the second one: Nothing is being done. It’s about accountability, which is a concept Boone doesn’t believe in.
Do you know why the Yankees love Boone and love “playing for him?” Because there is no accountability. Who doesn’t love a boss who doesn’t care about performance, production or results? Boone is the boss everyone in every job in every industry dreams of.
Boone doesn’t hold his players accountable because he isn’t held accountable by Brian Cashman, who isn’t held accountable by Hal, who doesn’t hold anyone accountable because the Yankees aren’t something he purchased because he achieved extraordinary wealth after a lifetime of hard work and smart business decisions.
After 2023, Steinbrenner said the season was “unacceptable” and then didn’t fire a single employee. Cashman has blown through more than $3 billion of payroll over the last 15 years while producing one embarrassing World Series appearance. Boone has a litany of performance-related excuses for his players after every single game and those players spend all season talking about tomorrow until there are no more tomorrows and then they talk about next year. Boone mentioned already looking forward to next year in his statement after his option was picked up. Hal said last week he is looking to talk about an extension with Boone. Why? Because the Yankees beat up on the AL Central in the postseason and reached the World Series before getting beat up themselves by a non-AL Central team? What does it say about accountability that the entire Boone era has been a collective disappointment and the owner is ready to extend him and go against the no-extension policy within the organization?
Can you imagine the Yankees running back a Boone-led team, but without Soto in 2025? It’s not only dangerously close to happening, it’s more likely to happen than it is to not because free agency is crazy and all it takes is one team out of nowhere to come in with some absurd offer and Soto is gone.
9. Soto is the last player of his caliber to ever reach free agency. Every young player is taking the double-digit year deals for the nine-figure payouts years before they can reach free agency. In the summer of 2022, Soto turned down a $440 million offer from the Nationals. Sure, he’s going to blow past that number now, but it’s hard to think anyone else would be willing to turn down nearly half a billion dollars.
It would be one thing if the Yankees could produce great everyday talent or recognize the right free agents to sign. That would make missing out on Soto hurt much less and even acceptable. But look around the field and aside from Judge, the rest of the non-Soto players were signed as free agents, acquired through trades, are busts or unknowns. The Yankees’ two top prospects right now are Dominguez, who they didn’t want to play over Verdugo in the playoffs, and Spencer Jones who is a month younger than Volpe and couldn’t even muster an .800 OPS in Double-A this year. Soto just spent a year with the Yankees and is familiar with their young talent, and it’s why he likely questioned player development when the Yankees visited him in California.
10. Everyone expects Soto to make a decision during the Winter Meetings which begin two weeks from today. I wish he would do it earlier than that. I just want to know where he’s going, so I can know where I’m going. I don’t want to walk away from the Yankees and baseball, but without Soto I don’t see another option, knowing Cashman and Boone aren’t going anywhere.
Is Soto going to spend the rest of his career in the Bronx or elsewhere? Am I going to spend six-plus months a year watching and writing about the Yankees or is it time to learn a language or an instrument? As of now, I can’t help but feel like when the Yankees open against the Brewers on March 27 at Yankee Stadium I’ll be spending the afternoon playing the saxophone and speaking Italian.
Last modified: Nov 25, 2024
