Over the next few weeks, you will hear desperate, shrill, otherworldly screams - the wailing of banshees, demons and janitors from Hell. Sadly, some of those sounds will come from me.
Listen: We can make the 2025 Yankees more complicated than an egg-bacon-and-provolone-melt-on-a toasted-everything-bagel, jelly-on-the-side... questioning whether $60 million can be better spent next year on infield, or defense, or bullpen sewer backups. But our best strategy is, actually, quite simple.
Sign Juan Soto. It's not about 2025. It's about the next 10 years. It's about a Hall of Fame career, and which hat will be worn into Cooperstown. It's about preserving a legacy of the Bronx Bombers. It's about your life's work.
Sign Juan Soto, and everything - eventually, somehow - will fall into place.
Sign Juan Soto, and over the next 10 years - at least the next five - the Yankees will field the greatest one-two punch in baseball.
Sign Juan Soto, and the Yankees will be - well - the Yankees. They won't dislodge the Dodgers as baseball's premier franchise, but they will keep testosterone rights to NYC and regularly reach the postseason. Nobody will accuse you of being a cheap nepo baby. (Unless you crap out in future bidding wars.)
Sign Juan Soto, and the Yankees could see their greatest OF since 1961 - (Mantle, Maris, Berra) - with Soto, Judge and Jasson Dominguez or Spencer Jones, assuming (hopefully) that either proves worthy.
Sign Juan Soto, and you will have met the responsibilities that you inherited 54 years ago, while suckling on your mother's teat.
This isn't about 2025. It's about 2027, when Soto will be 28 and entering his prime. (Judge will be 35, entering his twilight.) Whatever you pay Soto that year, it will look paltry compared to the ransoms for other free agents. (Bobby Witt Jr. Anthony Volpe?)
Sign Juan Soto, and you can sleep through January. (I'd prefer you keep spending; but we'll understand.) Buy a coffee shop. Drive the country in your Winnebago. Join a canasta league. Have you ever visited the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania? I'm not making this up. Bring bear spray!
Sign Juan Soto, and we'll survive the loss of Gleyber and Verdugo - aka Gleydugo. But we will not be the team - and you will not be the owner - that had the reincarnation of Mantle & Maris... and pissed it away.
Sign Juan Soto, or prepare to regret it for the rest of your life.
Keep Juan and carry on.
I see no path to confirmation.
ReplyDeleteBased on the grim visage presented by Herr Stainbrenner, I seriously doubt he's had the pleasure of sucking on anyone's teats in his lifetime.
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ReplyDeleteWhen a comment is removed by the author, is it gone forever or is there a digital copy of it floating around for eternity? I'm guessing the latter.
ReplyDeleteHal is such a tool. Boone is a complete idiot.
JM - that comment was factory recalled because its self heating neck rest was malfunctioning……
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ReplyDeleteWhat if HAL misinterprets the message, gets tutored in ASL and learns how to sign Juan Soto. What then? Damn this is all so overwhelmingly over complicated. If only we lived in simpler times. If only George still walked the earth as a Zombie. If only the world was a self governing utopia. The Son becomes the Father and the Father becomes confused because he was instructed to not comment until the time limit was up. Is Hazel still being broadcast on prime time television? Manners Maketh Man!
Hazel may be gone, but what about Nanny and the Professor? The Farmer's Daughter? My Mother the Car? Mr. Terrific?
DeleteEnquiring minds want to know.
My Mother The Car’s adroit social criticism and scathing political commentary sailed right over the heads over contemporary viewership. I do recall reading they were the first sitcom to actually film a fart joke (something to do with the car backfiring) which was excised by the censors.
DeleteAMEN, Duque! Beautifully put. In fact, I think we should make it "The Juan Soto Pledge": "If you sign Juan Soto, I promise never to call you a cheapskate nepo baby in the future. No matter how often you are just that."
ReplyDeleteI will take that pledge today! Right now, even!...
Can we still call him an asshole? A pampered dickhead? An undeserving, pathetic excuse for an owner?
DeleteDid you know that Steinbrenner means "stone burner" in German? How do you burn a stone? Even his name is absurd.
But again, that's not happening. Nor is there any plan in the wake of this failure.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the Yankees' front office, it's what they used to say in old westerns: "It's quiet out there. TOO quiet." Not a peep. Not only are they not even considering signing Soto, they're also not thinking about how to acquire Bregman or Burns or Alonso, or any of those other poor suckers who would suffer mightily in the Bronx, coming in the wake of the Soto Debacle.
Nope. Soon we're going to hear about how this team is good enough to win as is, and how having Jazz Chisholm for a full year will really make a difference, and...oh, I can't stand it.
Bitter tears, Hoss. Lower lips begin to quiver. Don’t bother looking up towards the heavens for answers because there are none. As we enter the holiday season I am reminded that nearly six weeks remain in 2024…what else does it have in store……
Deletehttps://youtu.be/mwFEpj_jbE8
ReplyDeleteShirley Booth was, I think, a well-regarded actress. I never got that from watching Hazel. Maybe it was just the annoying (to me) character she played.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Shirley Booth could have been a first base woman option for our team
DeleteWe can call him anything he wants, including "a cheapskate nepo baby," but that one phrase cannot be in modern English. Any other language or even a variant of English from before 1945 is acceptable. The Pledge (©Hoss) can have very narrow language, like a Boras contract. AND - GET THIS - we can opt out of the pledge at any time if one party reneges on their part of the bargain - IN PERPE-FUCKING-TUITY. I personally think we should call in warlocks and witches and have THEM deal with the demon seed of King George.
ReplyDeleteLike everyone, I want to see the team sign Soto, but also like everyone I doubt Steinbungler has the fire in his belly to do so.
ReplyDeleteI also loved Hoss’ point that if the team pivots to plan B by signing Bregman and/or Alonso, the players will be harshly judged by the fanbase for simply not being Soto.
Giant fans, Jones is out, DeVito is in. Call it an early Tanksgiving present.
ReplyDeletevia the new york daily spews:
ReplyDeleteAfter already meeting with a few other suitors, Juan Soto will hear the Yankees out.
The Bombers, led by a contingent that includes Hal Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone, were scheduled to meet with the right fielder and his agent, Scott Boras, in Southern California on Monday, as first reported by the New York Post. Boras’ agency is based out of Newport Beach.
and...from the seed-spitting' savant:
Last week, Boone said that he would lean on his own familiarity and relationship with Soto during the Yankees’ meeting, though the manager didn’t have a specific sales pitch planned.
“I do know him,” said Boone, who played an active part in Judge’s free agency a few offseasons ago. “Let it be organic and let the meeting go where it needs to go. I’m sure maybe he’ll have questions now that he is a free agent or want to address certain things. I’m just going to go in there and be myself and confident in my relationship with Juan and the ability to have honest conversations with him and certainly, hopefully cement the point of how valuable and how much we think of him, not only as a player, but as a person. I got to live that with him this year. That would be my sales pitch. Of course, how much we want him, but let the meeting go where it goes.”
Knowing as much about baseball as Soto does I have to believe he thinks Boone is a moron. If Boone wasn't in the meeting he might be able to say. Don't extend him.
DeleteAgreed - Its impressive how many locals (Dodger hating SF Giant fans knowing that I'm a Yankees fan) have approached me asking how a team like the Yankees choose to continue to employ such an idiot as a manager.
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ReplyDeleteAL Rookie of the Year goes to Luis Gil.
ReplyDeletePlease everyone - Let's have a round of applause for Mr Gil.
(thank you)
Happy Holidays, Luis!
DeleteThis comment signed with the Mets
ReplyDeleteThat ball club in Flushing is just so giving . . . makes one a little misty
DeleteGleydugo? Gleydugo must snort my taint in PERPE-FUCKING-TUITY.
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