As MLB’s Winter Meetings get underway in Dallas, Juan Soto has reportedly agreed to a record 15-year, $765 million contract with the Mets. The biggest contract in professional sports history has sent ripples throughout Major League Baseball. Soto ultimately chose the Mets over the Yankees just two months after hitting a home run which punched the Bombers’ tickets to the World Series. Life comes at you fast. While we already covered the fantasy fallout of Soto joining the Mets, we’ll now explore where the Yankees go from here.
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Acceptance
Before we look at how the Yankees might forge a path forward after losing Soto to the Mets, it’s important to process and accept what just happened. When the Yankees acquired Soto last winter, no assurances were given about Soto extending his stay beyond the one year of service time he had left before hitting free agency. Much was made about Soto playing for the Yankees and potentially giving the team the upper hand in negotiations if things went well. Things went pretty well as the team made the World Series for the first time since 2009 before losing in five games to the Dodgers.
As hard as it might be to swallow for the Yankees and their fans, it doesn’t seem that playing for the Yankees meant a great deal to Soto. After the World Series, Soto was asked about how his relationship with Yankees fans might impact the negotiations and he basically said to ask Yankees’ ownership the same question. ESPN’s Jeff Passan said that all it would take to land the 26-year-old outfielder was “a big bag of money.” The New York Post’s Jon Heyman reported that the Yankees’ final offer was for 16 years and $760 million, or $5 million less and one year more than the offer he accepted from the Mets. It was reasonable for the Yankees and their fans to assume that if Soto both enjoyed his time with the Yankees and believed in the future of the team, that he would re-sign with the club if the money offered was at least close. Passan also said he thinks Soto decided that the Mets have a brighter future. While many will blame Yankees ownership or call losing Soto to the Mets an organizational failure, it appears that Soto’s interest in going back to the Yankees was overblown from the start.
There are some legitimate reasons why Soto might’ve preferred the Mets over the Yankees. The Bronx Bombers’ core players like Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole and Giancarlo Stanton are all in their 30’s with Judge being the youngest at 32. If Soto signed with the Yankees, it’s unclear how much the team would’ve committed to other top free agents. Soto is a great player, but the Yankees already have Judge as the captain and face of the team. The Mets have Francisco Lindor, but Soto immediately became the face of the Mets and likely the greatest player in the history of the franchise by the end of his contract. He played his entire career in the National League before 2024 and won’t really have to adjust to a new league. Soto is also from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and the Mets have a sizable contingent of Latin players including Lindor, Francisco Alvarez, Edwin Diaz and Jose Iglesias and, of course, manager Carlos Mendoza. While the Yankees also have some Latin players, their clubhouse culture is just a little different with Judge and Cole, who can be both intense and laid back as leaders.
Essentially, this is a long way of saying there’s nothing more the Yankees could’ve done. Heyman reported over the weekend that both clubs had made offers to Soto between $700-$730 million. Given that the Yankees final offer was $760 million, it appears that the Yankees already moved from somewhere in the $700-$730 million range to $760 million. Given that he still signed with the Mets after that, it seems like Soto simply preferred to sign with the Mets all along and by the end was only using the Yankees as leverage to drive up the price (and it worked). The Yankees didn’t lose Soto over $5 million, they realized he was already gone.
Path Forward
So, where do the Yankees go from here? Well, the team with money to burn as evidenced by the offer to Soto, an aging core, a fan base hungrier than ever and coming off an American League championship isn’t about to start a complete youth movement. Juan Soto was a unique free agent because there’s so much money in baseball now that players who are that good and that young typically aren’t free agents. Pretty much any player that good would’ve signed an extension before their arbitration years to lock in some long-term financial security while also having their first free agent years bought out. Even Mike Trout, who had a higher WAR than Soto through age-25, signed an extension at age-22 that would’ve prevented him from hitting free agency until he was already 29. That’s what made pursuing Soto, 26, so enticing and what makes signing typical free agents in general a losing proposition.
I also issued this warning in my Yankees season review article that without Soto the club runs the risk of a repeat of the 2014 offseason when Robinson Cano walked in free agency and the Yankees signed Brian McCann, Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran instead. Having said all of that, given the state of the organization and *gestures at everything*, they have to sign at least two big-name free agents.
Related: 2024-25 MLB Free Agency Tracker
Team Needs
While the Yankees have certain areas to improve like any team, they don’t need to panic as a measured response will do fine. New York has already been linked to plenty of the other top free agents as they knew they would need backup plans if Soto didn’t re-sign. Looking at the lineup, they have flexibility given that Jazz Chisholm can play second or third base. Recently the Yankees have talked up infield prospect Caleb Durbin with manager Aaron Boone calling him “a stud” and mentioning him as an option at second base. Durbin hit .287/.396/.471 with 29 steals in 82 games at Triple-A in 2024 and will turn 25 in February.
MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand has reported that the Yankees have interest in signing Thairo Estrada, who will turn 29 in February and would be an affordable stopgap option at second base. Either way, with the Yankees making it clear that they’re moving on from Gleyber Torres and the lack of premium free agent second basemen, we’ll say that they go cheap at the keystone.
Ben Rice, who will turn 26 in February, is another young option for the infield at first base. Rice struggled in his first taste of the majors (73 wRC+) after starting the year in Double-A, but showed he has power (.178 ISO) and a good eye (11.2 percent walk percentage) in 50 games with New York. He could be the strong-side of a first base platoon with DJ LeMahieu. The Yankees seemed prepared to go young and cheap with some of their other lineup spots if they spent big on Soto, but just because they missed out on Soto doesn’t mean they’ll abandon that plan necessarily.
Let’s assume the Yankees mostly lean on their youth to fill their infield holes on the cheap, replacing non-essential players Torres and Anthony Rizzo with Durbin/Estrada and Rice/LeMahieu. With Judge back in right field, Stanton entrenched as the DH and uber-prospect Jasson Dominguez finally installed as the center fielder, it’s clear that the Yankees should spend on a left fielder.
With Chisholm, Austin Wells, Dominguez (switch hitter) and Rice all hitting from the left side, Teoscar Hernandez makes sense as a priority target for New York. At times last year, it felt like the Yankees were too left-handed with Soto, Chisholm, Wells, Rizzo and Alex Verdugo in the lineup. Hernandez can provide some lineup balance as a right-handed hitter and has the power to hit in the middle of the order. With Soto on the Mets, the Yankees have money to spend and the most motivation of any of the teams that didn’t get Soto to add a bat like Hernandez to their lineup.
On the pitching side, the Yankees have reportedly already met with Corbin Burnes and Max Fried, two of the top arms available on the free agent market. New York is also reportedly still in the Garrett Crochet trade sweepstakes. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale went as far as to tweet that he believes Fried will sign with either the Yankees or the Red Sox. With Cole, Carlos Rodon, Clarke Schmidt, Luis Gil, Nestor Cortes and Marcus Stroman all coming back, it might not seem like the Yankees need another starting pitcher, but any of Burnes, Fried or Crochet would be a significant upgrade to this pitching staff.
Quite frankly, there’s question marks surrounding all of the Yankees’ starters. Cole was injured and not exactly dominant in 2024. Rodon and Cortes were up and down. Schmidt and Gil were excellent for stretches, but showed the growing pains typical of young pitchers. Stroman was a healthy scratch for the entire playoffs, showing what the Yankees really think of him. Adding another arm in free agency to go with Cole at the top of the rotation and maybe throwing Cortes in a trade for a decent reliever, would go a long way for this pitching staff. Without Soto, the Yankees’ pitching will be even more important next year.
While they’re at it, they might as well spend big on a reliever. With right-handers Luke Weaver, Ian Hamilton, Mark Leiter Jr., Scott Effross and Jake Cousins all under team control, it’s clear the Yankees need a left-handed reliever. While Weaver took the Yankees closer role towards the end of the 2024 season, he was filling in on the fly after Clay Holmes lost the job. Weaver did an admirable job and earned the trust of Boone down the stretch and in the playoffs, but earlier in the season he established himself as a multi-inning weapon out of the bullpen. The Yankees shouldn’t forget that Weaver is more valuable in that role.
Tanner Scott is an obvious fit for a contending team that doesn’t have a locked-in closer and needs a high-leverage left-handed reliever. In October, fans and media debated whether lefties Cortes or Tim Hill should’ve pitched with the Yankees’ season on the line. A pitcher like Scott ends those debates really quickly.
Final Thoughts
So, there you have it. While the cure for missing out on a generational 26-year-old outfielder who signed the biggest contract ever by $5 million isn’t as flashy, medicine never looks appetizing when you wake up sick and open the cabinet. What the Yankees have going for them more than anything, though, is a wide open American League. The Astros aren’t the same team that beat them multiple times in the playoffs and could lose Alex Bregman this winter.
The Orioles have a lot of young talent, but it hasn’t led to playoff success yet and they could lose Burnes and Anthony Santander in free agency. None of the AL Central teams figure to spend much in free agency. Sure, another team could emerge and the Yankees already lost Soto, but they still have Judge, Cole and Stanton and their contention window hasn’t closed. With the Winter Meetings beginning Monday, the offseason is just starting. A year ago at this time Boone and general manager Brian Cashman had their backs against the wall, came out of it with the trade for Soto and rode it all the way to the World Series. The Yankees’ brass find themselves in a similar position once again. Time to go to work.