Juan Soto. Deep Sigh…

Juan Soto is a New York Met.

At least I’ll still be able to watch him regularly. (He wrote, with a shrug and a tear in his eye…)

Good for the Mets and their fans, because $765 million is a bargain for Juan Soto. Despite the obvious bump he’s going to be for the fan base both in terms of how exciting he is to watch on a day-to-day basis, and how good (and exciting) the Mets are going to be as a team, he’s going to be chasing huge milestones on his way to Cooperstown. As Yankee fans know, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez produced far more revenue than their contract value for Hal Steinbrenner as they went for benchmarks like 3,000 hits (and 600 home runs in Arod’s case).

Barring bizarre happenstances, Soto is a lock for 500 home runs and has legit shots at both 600 home runs and 3,000 hits – which is absurd considering how many walks he draws. If you’re curious, Henry Aaron, Albert Pujols, Arod and Willie Mays are the only players in the 600-home run, 3,000 hit club.

It might be less sexy, but he’s also got a shot at 2,000 walks, a marked cleared only by Barry Bonds, Rickey Henderson and Ted Williams since integration. The ability to get that many hits and draw so many walks also gives Soto a shot at reaching base 5,000 times in his career – Pete Rose, Bonds, Rickey, Carl Yastrzemski, and Aaron are the only players to do that since integration.

Although it may be soul crushing as a Yankee fan to realize how damn fun Soto is to watch play baseball and it’s not going to be for the Yankees anymore, it’s time to move on.

The good news is from an on-field perspective, as discussed here before, the Yankees are still in a very good position. Not that we should be worried about Hal’s trust fund, but Alex Bregman, Christian Walker, Anthony Santander, and a very good starting pitcher can all be had for significantly less money than what Soto cost. Those additions would make the Yankees a clearly better team than they were in 2024 with Soto.

Let’s look forward to moves such as those, with fingers crossed and a tear in our eye today.

Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments, or yell at me on the “My Baseball Page” on Facebook and Blue Sky.

Recommended reading: “The Bronx is Burning”. Seems apropos…

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