Juan Soto - the greatest young hitter in baseball - is 1 for his last 26 - mired in the first lengthy slump of his Yankee career. Tonight, when he steps to the plate, I suspect hope the fans will launch a resounding chant across the stadium, something to the effect of "PLEASE STAY... PLEASE STAY... PLEASE STAY."
And I sure hope he listens... not just for the sake of the Yankees, but for his immortal soul.
Soto is a two months away from the biggest decision of his life - whether to sign with the Yankees or whomever bids the most, like a prized heifer. If he chooses the latter, he will step into a future Yankiverse where he will forever be linked to one name.
In fact, instead of a loud chant, tonight the fans should greet Soto's presence by whispering that name, just loud enough to be heard.
Robbie Cano... Robbie Cano... Robbie Cano...
Yep. Somewhere out there, barely twinkling in the night sky, is the alt-universe where the Yankees in 2013 resigned Robbie - either by offering him another year, or convincing him to take less money. (Don't snicker: Aaron Judge made such a decision. So did Gerrit Cole. Think they regret it?)
Frankly, he's dead to us.
The record shows Joggy put up decent numbers for his first four years in Seattle - four meaningless years when the Mariners finished 3rd, 4th, 2nd, and 3rd in the AL West, while the Yankees competed (and failed) in postseasons - going through a raft of 2B replacements that included Brian Roberts, Stephen Drew and the cast of "Lost."
Add Cano to those Yankee lineups - that is, eliminate Starlin Castro, et al - and it's not hard to imagine a team getting that one extra hit that takes them to the world series, or maybe the Canyon of Heroes.
Add Cano to that roster, and it's not hard to imagine Giancarlo Stanton in 2018 remaining a Marlin, or maybe going to the Redsocks, because the Yankees didn't need another high end slugger.
Make Cano a lifelong Yankee, and it's not hard to imagine his plaque in Monument Park, or Cooperstown, two places I doubt he'll see in our lifetimes.
Nope, he loped off to Seattle so Jay-Z could launch his sports agency, which was gonna take America by storm. From there, Cano became the mercenary, a human dollar sign, always being judged by the money he was being paid.
For right or wrong - (and a certain billionaire owner also deserves a shit sandwich here ) - Cano walked away from the greatest career opportunity in American sports - to be a lifetime Yankee.
From there, he bounced like a football through the final stages of a desperate career, from drug suspensions to seasons below the Mendoza Line - with the Yankees never bringing him back, not even for catcalls.
And on this site, right or wrong, he shall forever be Joginson Cano.
Listen: Juan Soto is not facing an existential crisis, (as DJ, Verdugo, Holmes and Rodon are.) Yank fans have seen enough to recognize a great player, who the franchise absolutely must keep. If he accepts more money from another team - even the Mets - he will forever piss off the largest and most loyal fan base in baseball. In New York, that can translate into some extremely harsh media attention, especially in a pennant race when a guy is 1-for-his-last-26.
I truly hope that - for Soto's own soul - come Nov. 1, when the offers start coming, he concludes that money is not the only thing that matters. And I hope that Food Stamps Hal makes an offer equal to or better than anything else out there. Soto needs to wear a Yankee hat into the Hall of Fame. And tonight, as we chant PLEASE SIGN, there should a whispery echo of "Robbie Cano, doncha go..."
The other day, I saw the Cano was playing in the Mexican league, along with a batch of other over-the-hill old MLB players.
ReplyDeleteWonder where Soto will be in 20 years?
I'm wondering where Soto will be >next< year. I wonder where I'll be in twenty years. Where will you be in twenty years, JM?
Delete“playing in the Mexican league, along with a batch of other over-the-hill old MLB players”
DeleteI assume I'll be pushing up daisies in 20 years. Or being dissected at a teaching hospital.
DeleteThis is what happens when you trade for a guy who will be a free agent after just one year. Cashman gave up too much.
ReplyDeleteNow they have to hope that HAL will match any offer that Soto gets on the free agent market. What do ya think is the probability of that?
So even if they keep him, they gave up a boatload of players (who could have brought back some player other than Soto), plus they have to give up enough money to sink the Titanic to re-sign him.
In other words, Cashman got jobbed on both ends, like he always does.
The time to get Soto was when Washington was doing the garage sale. I was in favor of giving them anything and everything to get the deal done. But as far as I know, Cashman never made an offer.
ReplyDelete'Course, if Soto had come here during the Dillon Lawson years, then maybe they would've ruined him, put ridiculous ideas into his head. Maybe Soto never would've become a great hitter. Maybe he would've become a left-handed Giancarlo Stanton. But that's all speculation.... We can only deal with the facts. And the facts are that Cashman got jobbed on both ends.
On Robbie Cano, it was actually an intelligent decision not to offer him the ridiculous money that he got. Because, at that time, already he wasn't even getting around on the fastball. All of his home runs were coming on off speed pitches. His final year with the Yankees, I don't think he ever hit a fastball out for a home run. I saw that and said to myself that this guy is close to done. He did have one more good year for Seattle, but that was it. They paid all that money for one good year. Suckers!
ReplyDeleteThe only scenario that would make the Soto trade a good idea is IF the Yankees win the World Series this year. (Excuse me whilst I split my sides laughing.) What are the chances of them winning the whole enchilada this year? Like maybe one in one trillion?
ReplyDeleteThey can't even beat the fucking Washington Gnats two out of three. They will probably get killed by the fucking St. Louis Red-birds starting today. Fucking Boone, fucking Cashman. That's all you need to know.
Thank God football season is back, I don’t have to watch this dreck anymore.
ReplyDeleteI’ll tune back in for the first round playoff exit.
ReplyDeleteThe most amazing unbelievable stat from the DC series? The team was 1-26 with RISP. That’s not easy to do, but we did it! Is the coaches, or the players, or the entire bankrupt, feckless philosophy of the entire organization?
ReplyDeleteYou're being misled by results. The metrics show that the process is working. You have to stick to the process. Losing two out of three isn't important.
DeleteThus spake Blakey Cashman.
This is why the Padres went south on Soto...
ReplyDeleteSoto is a great player, and an infinitely more enthusiastic one than Cano, whose attitude was closer to that of Gleyber's: cheerful obliviousness. Both Torres and Robbie were the Alfred E. Newmans, "What me worry?" of baseball...
ReplyDeleteI SUSPECT that what happened here was yet another Brian Cashman being-too cute-for-his-own-good episode. You can almost hear the conversation in the executive suite: "We have to have another superstar to keep the fans coming this year." "Hey, boss, I know! We get Soto, we win the World Series, then we let him go and replace him with The Martian! The fans'll be so delirious they won't care—and you'll save all that dough! Hey, Washington did it, didn't they? Or something like it?"
ReplyDeleteBut talk about both ends—Cashie won't even bring up Dominguez yet because of his concerns about paying him five years from now. Which kind of spoils his evil plot...
Hammer, I think you're a little off on Robbie. He had a couple very good years in Seattle, and another that were okay, and would've been better with a better team. Duque, I don't know if he was ever going to make the Hall or the Wall. He certainly deserves to when it comes to stats, no question. But there is the matter of his juicing—for how long, and when would it have been discovered?
ReplyDeleteBut again, as Hammer notes, this was a case of Cashman failing to anticipate or act, YET AGAIN. Every time, with a major free agent, the Yankees wait until the end of his contract and then decide whether to try to re-sign them. It's as if they don't have a calendar available. And of course this puts them at the maximum worst time to undertake any negotiations. No doubt, it cost them a couple hundred million more for Judge alone.
ReplyDeleteYes, Robbie was 30. His age wasn't a secret, nor was the end of his contract. What Cashie coulda/shoulda/woulda done was traded him BEFORE he became a free agent, or at least taken the money saved and signed a capable replacement. Instead, we got the McCann-Ellsbury-Beltran combo. Uh, boy.
When it comes to Soto, as Hammer writes, it would have been far, far better to have taken all those players they threw away on the likes of Bader, Effross, Trivino-not-Trevino, etc., and traded them to DC in mid-2022. That might have actually got the Yanks over the top that year—and kept Michael King for us, who we could dearly use now.
In any case, once you get Soto, you're in. PERIOD. You can't let him get away, certainly not to the Mets. Choke up some of that cash, Cash, and let's go! But he won't.
What's making me cringe in anticipation of the off season is more who we sign that we shouldn't. Like Verdugo, or Torres, or Rizzo or whoever else should be given a nice farewell dinner.
DeleteSlumps happen. Big deal.
ReplyDeleteSoto is only 25. Think about that and ponder the next ten years having him hitting in tandem with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo behind him (well, with Glassman maybe the next three or four)
Add to that, the only real impact player we gave up to secure his services was Michael King, who is having a very respectable year in San Diego. The rest of the trade bait is mere chum.
Point is, the trade that Cashman engineered to bring Soto to New York has been an unqualified success, and as much as I have spent too many days bemoaning his inexplicable inability to judge talent (especially pitching) and still remain employed, this has been his best and maybe only true bright spot in his long and miserable tenure as GM.
But there is one caveat to this: the Yankees must open the vault to sign Soto for life. Five to six hundred million is not an unreasonable sum to offer him considering what rewards the sinkhole pockets of Hal would reap in return for that investment. Even a dunce like Hal should be able to see the ROI on this deal.
It must be done. Without making Soto a Yankee for life, the trade and the year have been wasted energy.
Soto, for his part, must see how hitting in front of Judge has enabled him to have a career year. He (and the agent from hell) must clearly see that his best chance of continuing on a HOF trajectory means signing a 10-12 year, 5-600MM deal to remain in pinstripes. Otherwise, he's just another man without a country.
And there. I've said it and will say it again: kudos to The Intern for bringing this magnificent ballplayer to New York. It might actually get this team to the World Series this year, an idea that was unimaginable to me at the beginning of the season.
He's one of the few lights in a sea of mediocrity and worse. Worth the money, without a doubt.
DeleteKeefe is nailing it again. https://keefetothecity.com/yankees-thoughts-an-awful-august/
ReplyDeleteStarlin Castro = Instant PTSD. who's going to pay for my mental health treatments? Joggy Joggy Joggy. He's somewhere warm now, probably half in the bag, thinking about how Viagara might help him a bit. Baseball? Furthest thing from his mind. Robinson, wherefore art thou?
ReplyDelete@ Acrilly.."Thank God football season is back, I don’t have to watch this dreck anymore." Apparently, you aren't a NY Giants fan.
ReplyDelete@ Horace...100% correct about Soto/The Martian: Should Dominguez have a very good September and playoffs, there's no chance in hell that Hal re-signs Soto because, as you stated, the plan was to get Soto for the year and hope the Yankees won it all or at least made it to the World Series and then replace him with the kid.
Not sure why everyone considers it a fait accompli that JD will be here Sunday. Under the new rules, rosters only expand from 26-28. Until recently you could expand up to 40. They claimed the change was to keep the game from getting bogged down by pitching changes, but the real reason was MONEY. owners like Hal wanted it written into the rules to prevent them from paying a month’s salary at the MLB level. Also, with JD, the team will want to be sure they can preserve an extra year of team control before free agency:
ReplyDelete“…player shall be considered a rookie unless he has exceeded any of the following thresholds in a previous season (or seasons): 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched in the Major Leagues. 45 total days on an active Major League roster during the Championship Season (excluding time on the Injured List)….
Good point, 999—and yet another way in which Hal actually voted against the best interests of the team he has in the field. Since Yanks are constantly in contention, this hurts them more than most. But then, as we know all too well, for Hal Steinbrenner, the "Yankees" = "me."
ReplyDeleteAnd Bitty, I think you're misremembering Starlin. He wasn't bad! .283, .759 OPS in 2 years with the Yanks; 37 homers—and that's with missing 50 games with an injury in his second season. He was only so-so with a glove, but well above Gleyber.
ReplyDeleteFor me, Starlin was bloody relief after a washed-up Brian Roberts and—shudder, shake, foam at the mouth—Stephen Drew.
I must have blocked that out, Hoss. I'm going to stagger back to my rocking chair and keep watching reruns of The Little Rascals and The Lone Ranger.
ReplyDeleteLet me know what you think about the cross over episode of The Lone Ranger and Hazel, Bitty
ReplyDelete