The Yankees Must Re-Sign Juan Soto
Soto, who smashed three home runs last night, is a free agent at the end of the season. He should be a Yankee for life.
All varieties of macabre — whether it was the news that Jazz Chisholm Jr. had a UCL injury that would possibly send him to the IL, or the grisly loss that the New York Yankees took against the Chicago White Sox on Monday night — was on display for the Yankees this past week. It’s been a season of joyful heights and unconscionable lows; home runs and errors; Aaron Boone ejections and the annoying cliches that he often spews after the game. This is all made worse by the fact that those in Yankee land are groaning over being without a championship ring in fifteen years. Fifteen years in Yankee land is long: that’s a teenager’s life, which means they are men and lovely women with children who have not seen the Yankees win the World Series. Nobody’s content with them having one of the best records in baseball because the team doesn’t allow for contentment. For every time they seem to be turning a corner, there’s a game that is uniquely depressing, leaving fans to wonder what to make of this team, and whether they can seriously contend for a championship.
But, at least the Yankees have Juan Soto, who is even better than advertised. Tonight, against the Chicago White Sox, he hit three home runs, including two opposite field ones that were scorchers. The last one was a towering blast over to the right centerfield seats, giving Yankee fans who infiltrated the lowly White Sox’s stadium a souvenir. The Yankees won 4-1 tonight, giving them a bounce back win on a night they truly needed it. How is this team going to persevere after Chisholm’s unfortunate injury? Can the depleted bullpen hold up? Those questions took a backseat when watching a marvelous ballplayer deliver a performance that makes fans fuzzy inside; watching him is a privilege — a treat that doesn’t usually happen for fans of other teams.
The night belonged to Soto, as a lot of nights have during the season. It’s possible to get traded to the Yankees and struggle mightily. The Yankees have a distinct way of teaching the game, and doing things: Sonny Gray, who was once a major disappointment after being traded, has said that the Yankees devalued his cutter, encouraging him to throw more sliders instead. He was quite bad at that. Furthermore, Yankee fans are fickle, and there’s an added pressure to playing here every day, even if fans of other teams would roll their eyes at that. It’s definitely much easier to be successful in DC or San Diego, two markets that aren’t nearly the market that New York is. Soto, however, has handled everything with an ease of the rapper Method Man, smiling at pitchers who dare to throw him anything near the plate, and indoctrinating Yankee fans into his orbit of flair and routine excellence.
He’s been elite throughout his career. When people compared him to Ted Williams, a few baseball heads from the stone age were performatively upset, grumpily wondering how people can say such a thing. The numbers that Williams had in that era were fantastic, and obviously Soto won’t hit over .400 but the comparison makes sense. Both men are left-handed bats; both men have an innate knowledge of the strike zone that far outweighs any other hitter; both have power but also the ability to hit rockets to any part of the diamond. Sometimes, watching him hit — an act that is usually tougher than a heavyweight boxer with illegal padding in his gloves — is like watching someone glide on a dance floor. It’s easy for him, the equivalent of being birthed by a particular spirit to do something on planet earth. He’s got an OPS+ of 182, good for second in the league behind his teammate, Aaron Judge. (Hot take: I trust Soto more in the playoffs. It remains to be seen how “Judgey” will hit in October, a month that isn’t always kind to him).
If you have not heard, Soto is a free agent at the end of this season. The Yankees have a rule that they don’t negotiate in the middle of the season, a rule that became outdated the minute Juan Soto played his first game for the Yankees. There are going to be fans who might disagree with this feeling, but if the Yankees don’t re-sign Soto, it is grounds to stop supporting the team. The reasons are as following: He’s 25 years old — younger than Aaron Judge and Alex Rodriguez were when the Yankees re-signed him — and the second best hitter in the entire league; he plays a premium and marketable position; he’s a Dominican player in a city that celebrates that heritage, and in a borough and area where people of that heritage live, not to mention for a team that has always needed more color on their team; he’s shown that he can handle the spotlight, and that he can still be mysterious — quite like all the best Yankees are. Furthermore, the aura around the Yankees is different. This is no longer the team of the century. The Knicks are on the rise, and have built a core and overall energy that is impossible not to be excited about. I could envision a city — that has always belonged to the Knicks — completely forgetting about the Yankees if Soto is not locked up for the foreseeable future.
It’s impossible to know the financial security of Hal Steinbrenner, George’s son, and owner of the New York Yankees, but it shouldn’t matter in this situation. If Soto is not a Yankee by the time spring training starts in 2025, then it is a tremendous failure; it’d be an arrogant decision by a front office that has made several of them. In my lifetime, the Yankees have trotted out four superstar hitters: Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Aaron Judge, and Juan Soto. He showed that last night. There’s no excuse for not making him a Yankee for life.