The wooing of Juan Soto, easily the most coveted free agent on the market and one of the best ever to hit said market, is getting serious. You can make a case that the incumbent New York Yankees are the favorites to bring him back to the Bronx, but Steve Cohen and the crosstown Mets will surely have a say in such matters. As well, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, and Philadelphia Phillies are known to be in the mix, and matters such as this one typically bring us whispers of a mystery team or two.
Speaking of the Soto derby and the Yankees' prominent role in it, owner Hal Steinbrenner addressed where things stand on Wednesday, and he did so in the vague and unenlightening terms native to the ownership class when speaking of money matters. For Yankee partisans and those wanting to see Soto land elsewhere alike, whatever you need at this uncertain moment can probably be found in Steinbrenner's words.
First, via The Athletic, we have what passes for some level of Yankee confidence from Steinbrenner:
"I've got ears. I know what's expected of me."
What's expected of Steinbrenner is that he leverages the Yankees' incumbency advantage and the deepest coffers in the sport to bring back this generational hitter. Unless Soto signs a lesser offer elsewhere – an unthinkable turn of events – then the failure will be Steinbrenner's if he's not a Yankee for the next decade-plus.
Next comes what can be parsed as a subtle lowering of the expectations he just acknowledged above:
If you're a Yankees fan, you'd probably like to see something north of "honest" and "no idea" when it comes to post-Soto-caucus appraisals. If you're pulling for the Mets or some other Soto contender, then you're taking some level of heart from the opportunity to read "honest meeting" as suggesting entrenched positions not especially close to one another. It's a Rorschach in that way.
Now comes the lowering of stakes:
He's right in that losing Soto at all would sting and do great harm to the Yankees' hopes of winning both belt and title within the foreseeable future. He's probably wrong when he says that losing him to the Mets wouldn't be more keenly felt by the Yankees. That would be little brother landing one squarely on the jaw of big brother, and that's a bit different from other scenarios of failure.
We're going on about this mostly because of Soto's brilliance and value. This season for the Yankees, he slashed .288/.419/.569 with 41 home runs and more walks than strikeouts. For his career, he owns an OPS+ of 160 and a WAR of 36.4. To boot, he's exceedingly durable and still just 26 years of age. All of those considerations plus his substantial star power mean Soto may wind up inking a deal worth $600 million or more.
We're also going on about this because any reading of the current tea leaves reveals the Yankees and Mets to be the two leading candidates, and that of course has the energy of a civic rivalry behind it. It'll be as much of an offseason defeat as a team can sustain if the Yankees lose Soto to the Queenslanders, and nothing Steinbrenner can say – or not say – can change those stakes.