Dream on.

 

I see that of late, many of you have decided to believe the hype, drink the Kool-Aid, [insert your cliché here] and swallow the Yankees’ party line on why we’re just as well off not re-signing Juan Soto. 

 

I think we’re all agreed that it doesn’t really matter because chances are that Hal is not going to pony up the money for Soto in any case. But just for the sake of that great Yankees archive in the sky, I got dis to say about dat:

—It’s a lot of money. Sure is. And believe me, folks, when the Yanks let Soto amble over to Queens, none of the prices are coming down by one thin dime. They are still going to charge us all a fortune for mediocre beer brands; they are still going to sweep five lobster tails onto the plates of those fortunate sons in the Legends Suite while they screw the rest of the fans and the taxpayers over at every opportunity.

And even if you don't go to a game, or watch one on any device, they're still going to hit us up for enormous public subsidies—particularly after the Rays get their new park, wherever. They'll have some excuse, like how the one we gave them in 2009 doesn't have this or that luxury amenity, like robot seat butlers, or a hurricane-proof dome. 

The Yankees, believe it or not, started agitating for another new stadium as early as 1983, just 7 YEARS after the YS II opened. By 1998, they were in full lather about it. That was just 22 years after the last one. At that rate, it will take them to 2031, about which time Juan Soto will be taking home his 4th or 5th NL MVP as a Met.

—He could get hurt. Sure could. And with today’s sports training and medicine—and the DH—Soto could easily play another 15 years. Many injuries are hard to predict. I never thought that Don Mattingly’s back would give out as early as it did—or that Aaron Judge would only seem to get more sturdy. 

 

Brian Cashman already signs up all sorts of guys with dubious injury histories (looking at you, Jazz Chisholm and Harrison Bader). In any case, I’m sure the Yankees will insure him with those patsies over at Lloyd’s of London, so it won’t really hurt the team's budget.

—He will decline. Of course he will. Who doesn’t? (With the exception of all the incredibly well-preserved, he-man bravos among us, of course.) But unlike, say, a Jacoby Ellsbury who was in good part a speed guy, and thus inevitably going to see his value decrease quickly, Soto is a slugger, wonderfully well-suited to our right field porch even if he’s using a walker by 35.

—He’s not that good an all-around player. Okay, he’s an erratic fielder and he doesn’t steal many bases. Neither did, say…Manny Ramirez. Think we wouldn’t have won a few more rings if we’d signed Manny in 2001 instead of letting Boston do so? Yeah, I thought so.

 

No one is saying that Soto is Willie Mays, or Babe Ruth, or The Mick. But right now, at just 26, when you take away the juicers and the members of the Colorado Rockies, he is 13^th on the all-time, major-league OPS list. 

 

Juan Soto is not just a generational talent. He’s an all-time talent.

—We’ll spend so much money on him, we won’t be able to get enough pitching. Sorry, but we already gave away four young pitchers for Soto—and it will be a giveaway, all right, if we let him walk after one year. Those four included Michael King, already a top pitcher for a major NL contender, San Diego, and Drew Thorpe, who the Padres used in the Dylan Cease deal.

If there’s one thing Hal & Pal are even less likely to do—and more likely to screw up—than acquiring major position players, it’s pitching. Having Soto is not going to change that one way or the other.

—If we don’t spend so much money on him, we can use it to fill up all the other holes on our team. Yeah, that might be true—if we fired Brian Cashman tomorrow.

 

You know, I know, the American people know, and Bob Dole knows that Cashie is no more capable of building a championship team on his own than anyone hired by our local football teams. He’s put in 27 years proving that. 

—There is a “Dream Team” just waiting to step up if Soto goes. I noticed that Cody Bellinger has recently been added to the Great Suppositional Team. Yeah, Cody should have been signed two years ago, when he was dirt cheap, and might have put us over the top in 2022. Blake Snell they could’ve had last year. 

 

I know, I know: Anthony Santander hit a bunch of home runs last year. He also doesn’t field or run all that well either, batted .235, and walked all of 58 times. And he’s 4 years older than Soto. Christian Walker is 33. And no, Cashie is not moving the man he wants to be the next Derek Jeter out of shortstop. Or taking Jazz Chisholm off third.

—Willie Mays and Henry Aaron were great players, and they only won a single ring each. This was pointed out by Doug K. And he’s right. 

 

In 23 years of major-league play apiece, Mays and Aaron only took two World Series titles between them, and those in the bloom of their youth. Mays only reached the postseason 5 times with the Giants and Mets; Aaron, 4 times with the Braves (if you count the 1959 playoff for the pennant).

 

That’s in good part because those teams were mostly run by incompetent boobs. (For competent boobs, see Bernadette Peters. Thank you, thank you! And please remember your waitresses! They’ll remember you.)

But as Crapshoot Cashman could tell you, those days are as dead as Baltimore chop and the sacrifice bunt. By today’s standards—whereby you only have to finish in the top 40 percent of the league to make the playoffs—Mays would have been in the postseason 19 times; Aaron, 9 times.

 

Soto’s odds of winning it all for us are much, much higher than back in the day when just two teams got to play for it all. But he won’t win a single title for us...if he’s in Flushing Meadows.

—Trent Grisham. Yep. That's the guy who will become our full-time centerfielder if Juan Soto goes elsewhere. Trent Grisham, who has not hit above .198 since 2021.

You think Brian Cashman's not serious about this? Think again. This is the man who made us play an entire season with Chris Stewart as our starting catcher. Who came within a hairsbreadth of make Bubba Crosby our starting centerfielder.

Gentlemen, I rest my case. If you think good things are going to happen in the wake of Soto going to Queens, well, I can only refer you to Aerosmith, 1973.