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Juan Soto is going to get paid. That much is known. Which team will be paying him is a bit more up in the air, as Jon Heyman reminded everyone before the weekend with a report that 11 teams had already checked in on him the second they could post-World Series.
Heyman mentions that Soto is looking for $700 million, and not deferred like with Shohei Ohtani’s major deal. The chances of Soto actually getting $700 million are basically nil, sure, but you ask for $700 million and negotiate down to what a team will give you. If you start with what a team will give you, you’re still going to end up negotiating down. That’s just how these things work, which is a lesson a lot of folks seem to need to relearn every November.
Anyway, the key thing here is that there is no genuinely good reason that the Yankees shouldn’t end up with Soto. Sure, the Mets have deep pockets, and they’re interested, too, but the Mets’ payroll is also already so high as to be in danger of triggering the special “Cohen tax” nicknamed for their owner. For the same reason they were out on Shohei Ohtani, I imagine they’re not actually going to go for Soto. I could be wrong, of course. Cohen might have decided he doesn’t care about how much he’s paying in taxes per season, either, not if he gets to pair Juan Soto with Francisco Lindor in a lineup that was already just a few wins away from a World Series berth. But if you asked me to say something definitive about it, I’d say the Mets just want to make sure they’re in the mix, and no one is getting Soto for a song. Well, at least a song as far as a player of Soto’s caliber is concerned. The Mets being involved, at the very least, makes it more difficult for the Dodgers to pull a Dodgers, making the Mets’ life worse in the process.
This is worth noting, in terms of how guaranteed-to-be-serious the Yankees are going to be about Soto. Per Heyman:
The Yankees’ recent history suggests they aren’t market setters, as they re-signed the great, homegrown Aaron Judge but only by matching the Giants’ initial $360M offer, and only after club owner Hal Steinbrenner broke a split decision below him. So there’s some skepticism within Soto’s camp as to whether the Yankees will ultimately get this done for a player who isn’t homegrown.
I can’t speak for the importance of “homegrown” superstars to the Yankees’ ownership with these decisions, but that the organization was seemingly that close to losing literally Aaron Judge to the Giants of all teams is worth remembering. Soto is younger, of course, but Judge was and is no slouch: he won his MVP before that deal with the Yankees, after slugging 62 homers in a 10-win season, and is 2024 was arguably a better campaign despite the dip in his defensive stats. If they were spit on whether to keep that guy, and for just $360 million, it’s fair to think Soto isn’t an automatic re-sign.
This is where it should be pointed out that the Yankees pulled in $345 million just from ticket sales in 2022, and in 2024 they made it to the World Series, which creates all kinds of additional revenue on its own. They did that with Soto in tow, who didn’t lead the Yankees in every offensive category only because he was teammates with Aaron Judge, and also maybe hasn’t even hit his peak yet since that was just his age-25 season. The Yankees don’t have to concern themselves with any of the regional sports network drama, as they own and operate and wildly profit from their own network, YES. They are in the best position of any team in the game to have the contracts of both Aaron Judge and Juan Soto on board, and this will only be more true the deeper into the deals they each get: remember, Ohtani’s record-breaking deal is estimated to be worth under $500 million in present-day dollars, despite the gaudy unadjusted figure. These things change in a hurry!
The Yankees have a bunch of holes to fill, sure — the lineup had Soto and Judge and a semi-resurgent Giancarlo Stanton in it, yes, but it also had four starting position players with OPS+ in the well-below-average 80s, with Jazz Chisholm the sole soothing balm applied in-season. That’s no reason to avoid paying Soto, however. The Yankees can afford to pay for some league-average players at first base, or move Judge to a corner so there’s less pressure on his body as he ages and fill that spot with a decent center fielder, and also have Soto.
Yes, it will be expensive, but the only limit to the Yankees’ spending is how much they want to be able to pocket at season’s end. Hal Steinbrenner saying the team can’t always have a $300 million payroll has more to do with his not wanting to have a $300 million payroll because it cuts into profits than the actual logistics of that act. Which is something to remember with Monday’s deadline for adding another year to Gerrit Cole’s deal to void his opt-out, with the chase for Soto, with filling in the many gaps left on the roster that need to be filled for the Yankees to go beyond what they managed this past season. Money should not be what holds the Yankees back, but depending on their decisions this offseason — please, remember that this is the year in which a Steinbrenner uttered the word “sustainability” in reference to spending — that might be exactly what happens.
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