Juan Soto to the Mets

by EJ Fagan

December 2024

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NOTE: The following comes from EJ Fagan's substack page and is shared with permission. This was published a few days ago so the stats don't include the last few games.

Please check out EJ's substack page for more great articles.

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Juan Soto has played his last game as a New York Yankee. Steve Cohen ultimately had the most money, and Soto chose the team with the most money. Potentially $800 million if he hits the accelerators? Just wow.

It’s going to sting for a bit. The Yankees have an 8-win hole to dig out without Soto.

But here’s my big take: this is a bad contract. No doubt Soto will be a great player for a long time. But 15 years is a really long time. A lot can change in 15 years. All time greats like Albert Pujols, Ken Griffey Jr, Miguel Cabrera and (sigh) Mike Trout were did very little after their early 30s. The Soto deal could be an absolute disaster for a decade or more. Or he could age like Ted Williams or Barry Bonds.

The economics of baseball are also uncertain over that long time frame. We’re used to a world where salaries and the luxury tax only go up. Will that continue to be the case? I don’t know. I do know that cable television won’t be bringing in big money in 10 (5?) years. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next CBA negotiations tighten up the luxury tax a lot.

There will be time to talk about specific Plan Bs. But here are some big picture thoughts:

• The Yankees need to win now. Aaron Judge won’t be the best player on the planet for long. The Yankees aren’t really built to wait around and let Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe build the next great Yankees team. They need to add to replace Soto and build a fighting team.

• At least the Yankees don’t have two long term right fielders. Aaron Judge gets to go back to his best position for good now. The Yankees could have made Soto+Judge work, but it would have involved a defensive downgrade somewhere.

• Upcoming free agent classes aren’t all that impressive with one exception: Vlad Jr. He’ll be 27 years old. He’s not going to get $800 million, but could he get $500 million? Soto just pushed a lot of prices up. There aren’t a lot of tip top players on the horizon, but the lesson for Jackson Merril or Paul Skenes or Gunnar Henderson is pretty clearly “don’t sign an extension.”

• Not having Soto’s money also increases the possibility that the Yankees sign some of their younger players long term. I wonder what it would take to lock up Wells or Volpe right now.

• This holiday season, I’m thankful that Soto is in the National League and not Boston.

  
  

More to come...