Mets Among Roughly 11 Teams To Reach Out To Soto
Day One of the offseason means the Juan Soto pursuits are underway. Until Monday, only the Yankees are allowed to discuss salary figures. However, other teams can touch base with his camp to broadly express interest and pitch their organizations now that the World Series is finished.
The top free agent has gotten no shortage of attention. Jon Heyman of the New York Post writes that 11 teams were in contact with Soto’s camp by Thursday morning. The Post’s Mike Puma relays that the Mets — widely perceived as the top challenger to the incumbent Yankees — were among them.
Soto getting attention from more than a third of the league isn’t surprising. There isn’t a single front office that wouldn’t love to add him. The number of legitimately plausible suitors is much smaller. Soto’s contract demands figure to be prohibitive for all but a handful of teams, though Heyman writes that two unidentified small-market franchises were among the initial eleven. Still, it’s hard to envision Soto landing with a team that isn’t a traditional behemoth.
To that end, Heyman floats the possibility of Soto’s camp looking to top $700MM without any deferred money. While Shohei Ohtani hit that mark before adjusting for the deferrals, the deal’s net present value was well south of $500MM. MLB calculates the Ohtani deal just shy of $461MM for luxury tax purposes, while the Players Association puts it around $438MM. Either number still represents an all-time record. The Ohtani contract is the only one in MLB history to top $400MM.
There’s not much doubt that Soto is going to beat both versions of the NPV of the Ohtani deal. Doing so on a contract with a present value of $700MM is a massive ask. It’d require breaking the guarantee record by upwards of $240MM. Getting there would require at least $50MM annually over a 14-year term. Ohtani’s deferral-adjusted $46.06MM average annual value is the only AAV north of $44MM.
No free agent has signed for 14 years. Fernando Tatis Jr. is the only player to sign a 14-year contract, though his $340MM deal was an extension signed before his age-22 season. Bryce Harper got to 13 years as a free agent going into his age-26 season, as Soto is now. Harper took a relatively diminished $25.38MM annual salary, and while Soto is certainly going to beat that, shattering the AAV record and signing the longest free agent contract of all time would be an ambitious ask.
Of course, Soto is going to start free agency with extremely high expectations. The process seems likely to carry well into the offseason, perhaps beyond December’s Winter Meetings. Every high-payroll franchise figures to be linked to Soto in some capacity. The general expectation is that there’ll be a huge bidding war between Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner and Mets owner Steve Cohen, in particular. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns has already stated that the organization has the payroll flexibility to consider a run at “pretty much the entirety of the player universe.”
Puma notes that while the Mets may shy away from signing players who require draft compensation, they’re unsurprisingly willing to make an exception in Soto’s case. He’ll decline a qualifying offer, so the Mets would forfeit their second- and fifth-highest draft choices and $1MM in international bonus pool space to sign him.
That’s a non-issue for a player of Soto’s caliber. If the Mets are reluctant to surrender draft compensation, that could be a factor for their other free agent pursuits. They’ll be heavily involved on free agent pitchers. Corbin Burnes and Max Fried will get QOs, but Blake Snell and Jack Flaherty are ineligible. Borderline QO candidates include Michael Wacha, Nick Martinez and Nick Pivetta. As with Soto, they could consider Burnes and Fried to be exceptional free agents for whom they’re willing to take a hit to their farm system. That’ll be a subplot in what should be a fascinating offseason in the Big Apple.
Dodgers Expected To Be In On Juan Soto’s Free Agent Market
The Dodgers’ focus on Juan Soto is currently directed towards figuring how to get the slugger out during the remainder of the World Series, but once the offseason begins, the club could be looking to add Soto to its own lineup. The New York Post’s Jon Heyman reports that the Dodgers are interested in Soto and will start more of a full-fledged pursuit “if he’s interested” if coming to Los Angeles.
As Heyman notes, the Dodgers’ deep pockets have allowed them to at least check in on virtually every major free agent in recent years, so if anything, it would be unusual if L.A. didn’t have Soto on its offseason wish list. The Dodgers are also one of the few teams that can reasonably meet Soto’s asking price, which is widely expected to be the most upfront guaranteed money ever given to a baseball player. The “upfront” caveat is necessary since Shohei Ohtani‘s $700MM deal is so heavily deferred that the contract is worth around $437.8MM in present value, and Soto’s next deal is expected to surpass the $500MM mark.
According to RosterResource, the Dodgers already have roughly $257.2MM committed to their 2025 payroll, as well as a $253.1MM estimate on their luxury tax number. The latter again puts the Dodgers over the tax threshold ($241MM) for next season, and naturally adding Soto for a minimum of a $50MM average annual value would put the club over the highest tax penalty tier of $301MM. Since Los Angeles has already been a tax-paying team for the last four seasons, crossing the $301MM threshold would more than double the size of the team’s tax on any overages beyond the $241MM mark.
Of course, the luxury tax has clearly not been a major concern for the Dodgers in their pursuit of top-tier talent. With Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Will Smith signed through the rest of the decade and Freddie Freeman and Tyler Glasnow both signed through at least 2027, the Dodgers won’t be ducking under the tax line any time soon, and the financial penalty is offset by the simple fact that the team is a revenue-generating juggernaut.
There are plenty of obvious reasons why Soto would have his own interest in joining a perennial contender like the Dodgers, though geography continues to be the lingering question surrounding Soto’s impending free agency. While Soto and Padres owner Peter Seidler made some headway in extension talks prior to Seidler’s passing a year ago, Heyman repeats the long-held belief that Soto would prefer to play on an East Coast team, all things being equal. This could make the Yankees or Mets the favorites to sign him this winter, as the two New York teams can better fit Soto’s preferences of both location and contract.
While the Yankees and Mets alone could generate a nice bidding war, Soto and agent Scott Boras would certainly have a vested interest in keeping other teams in the hunt, be it the Dodgers or other potential suitors like the Giants, Blue Jays, or Nationals. If the Dodgers perceive that Soto’s interest in coming to L.A. is fairly limited, the team could easily move onto any number of other options on the free agent market.
For instance, re-signing Teoscar Hernandez would be much less expensive than signing Soto, and Hernandez is already a known quantity in Los Angeles and a big offensive force in his own right. Heyman also figures the Dodgers will look to add another big pitcher to its injury-ravaged rotation, even though Ohtani, Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, and others are expected to be healthy by Opening day.
Soto, Steinbrenner Held Private Meeting In July
Juan Soto and Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner had a one-on-one meeting in July, reports Brendan Kuty of the Athletic. The four-time All-Star confirmed the conversation, telling Kuty that “it was good to get to know the owner, get to see what he’s thinking about me and everything.”
Soto didn’t provide any specifics. However, Kuty reports that the general focus of the conversation was on Soto’s experience with the team. “It’s always good to see (an owner) coming over at least to say hi,” the outfielder told The Athletic, “see how we’re doing, what we have in mind, this and that. It’s great to have an owner that really cares for players.”
Steinbrenner hasn’t been shy about his desire to keep the superstar in pinstripes. The owner said in May that he was open to in-season extension talks. Soto closed that down a few weeks later, reiterating in June that he and agent Scott Boras would wait until the offseason to worry about contract terms. Considering Soto has reportedly declined a number of extension offers throughout his career, there was never much doubt that he’d test free agency.
[Related: Previewing The 2024-25 Corner Outfield Class]
The Yankees are going to face a push from the crosstown Mets and should have some amount of competition for Soto’s services from every high-payroll franchise. One meeting between Soto and Steinbrenner isn’t going to change the odds of keeping him around, but it’s presumably a bit of a preview of the months to come.
Soto has established a new career high with 41 homers during his first season in the Bronx. He leads the American League with 128 runs scored and is hitting .288/.418/.572 across 704 trips to the plate. By measure of wRC+, Soto has been 80 percentage points better than a league average batter. That’s his best mark in a 162-game schedule.
Nationals’ Rizzo On Offseason Spending, Rotation, CJ Abrams
Nationals president of baseball operations and general manager Mike Rizzo said recently that his club will be on the lookout for middle-of-the-order bats this offseason, in an effort to supplement a growing young core. The Nats would reportedly “love” a reunion with Juan Soto — unsurprisingly so; who wouldn’t at least be interested? — and the free agent market will have big-name bats ranging from corner infielders Pete Alonso, Alex Bregman and Christian Walker, to shortstop Willy Adames, to slugging corner outfielders like Anthony Santander and Teoscar Hernandez.
Multi-year free agent deals of any real magnitude haven’t been a focus for the Nationals throughout the past three years of their rebuild, but Rizzo suggested in his weekly appearance on 106.7 The Fan’s “Sports Junkies” show that a return to the deeper waters of free agency could be possible this winter (Audacy link to the entire 14-minute interview). Asked if ownership “will be open to going out and giving bigger money to guys who are established” (as opposed to the recent run of one-year deals and reclamation-project hitters), Rizzo replied:
“I think if the opportunity arises and the right fit arises, I don’t see any reason they wouldn’t. They’ve done it in the past when there’s players out there that are available that fit what we’re looking for.”
The Lerner family, which owns the Nats, has indeed been willing to spend at top-of-the-market levels in offseasons past. Washington has twice doled out more than $200MM on single free-agent deals: Max Scherzer‘s seven-year, $210MM contract and Stephen Strasburg‘s seven-year, $245MM pact. The latter of those two signings, of course, did not pan out. The former stands as one of the best and most successful major free agent signings in history. The Lerners have also given the green light to another pair of nine-figure signings in Patrick Corbin (six years, $140MM) and, way back in 2010, Jayson Werth (seven years, $126MM — a massive contract at the time).
Certainly, the Nationals haven’t spent at the level that will be required to sign Soto this offseason, but Soto figures to command a historic contract. No team has really gone to that length — arguably not even the Dodgers, given the unique and deferral-laden structure of the 10-year contract they gave to Shohei Ohtani last winter. (MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald and I discussed the possibility of a Nationals pursuit of Soto on this morning’s episode of the MLBTR Podcast, which was recorded prior to Rizzo’s comments.)
With regard to the rest of the free agent class, none of Bregman, Alonso, Santander, Hernandez or any of the other big bats in free agency figure to exceed the limits at which the Nationals have spent in the past. That doesn’t ensure that the Nationals will pony up for a top-of-the-market bat, but there’s precedent for them spending at or even in excess of most of those levels. Add in the fact that the only guaranteed contracts on the Nationals’ books beyond the current season are the remaining two seasons of that Strasburg deal and Keibert Ruiz‘s eight-year, $50MM extension (spanning the 2023-30 seasons), and there’s room for the Nats to engage with any free agent they deem a fit — Soto included.
Rizzo noted that expenditures to bolster the lineup needn’t only come on the free-agent side of things. He listed both the trade level and the “development level” of player acquisition as well, noting that between the three he expects an “active, interesting winter” for his club. Rizzo stopped short of declaring the team’s rebuild entirely over and proclaiming the 2025 campaign a clear win-now season, but the general tone of his comments Wednesday painted a team on the rise with increased expectations of contending sooner than later.
Much of that has to do with the strides Washington has seen from its collection of in-house starting pitchers, for whom Rizzo effused praise. Right-hander Jake Irvin and lefties MacKenzie Gore and Mitchell Parker will all finish with 30-plus starts and more than 150 innings. Southpaw DJ Herz, called up later in the season, will close out the year with 19 big league starts, in all likelihood.
All four pitchers currently have an ERA between 4.04 and 4.30. Broadly speaking, their earned run averages have ticked up late in the season as their workloads have reached previously uncharted waters. Each is already at least 27 innings past his previous single-season career-high mark. In Irvin’s case, his 183 1/3 innings are 40 more than his previous highwater mark. Some fatigue and growing pains are to be expected. Still, Rizzo made clear that the simultaneous development of that quartet is among the organization’s biggest successes this season and serves as “a great measuring stick going forward.”
Presumably, the Nats hope that top pitching prospect Cade Cavalli, who missed the 2023 season and much of 2024 while recovering from Tommy John surgery, can join that group in 2025. It’s a solid-looking collection of arms, although given the general volatility and attrition rate of pitchers, it’s easy to envision Rizzo and his staff considering at least one veteran addition this winter to supplement the group and safeguard against injuries and/or regression. Rizzo didn’t specifically call out rotation support as an area of need, but virtually any team would be reluctant to head into a season with five starters under the age of 28 and with three or fewer years of big league service atop the depth chart.
Rizzo was also naturally asked about the recent demotion of shortstop CJ Abrams, whom the Nationals optioned over the weekend. At the time of the move, the team only indicated that it was for an off-the-field issue. Subsequent reports have suggested that Abrams’ demotion was a disciplinary measure after he stayed out all night at a casino the night before a day game against the Cubs. Rizzo unsurprisingly declined to delve into specifics but confirmed it was an off-field issue and voiced support for Abrams moving forward:
“It was not performance-based. We felt it was in the best interest of the player and the organization to do so. It’s an internal issue that we’re going to keep internal. … It’s not the end of the world for CJ. It’s not the end of the world for the Nationals. It’s something that happens over the course of time, especially with young players. We love CJ. We care for CJ. We’re in constant communication with he and his agent, and we still have a great relationship.”
“…We have a standard here. We’ve had it for a lot of years. When players don’t reach those standards, we have to do what’s in the best interest of the organization. … And when players fail to reach those standards, we have to do something to get them back into the mode of Nationals, and teammate, big leagues. We felt that it was warranted in this case. Like I said, not the end of the world. Not the end of CJ Abrams. Not the end of the Nats.”
Abrams, who’ll turn 24 in a couple weeks, came to the Nationals alongside Gore, James Wood, Robert Hassell III and Jarlin Susana in the trade sending Soto to the Padres. The former top prospect looked to be in the midst of a full-fledged breakout for the first half of the season, slashing .282/.353/.506 through early July. He’s since fallen into a protracted slump, hitting just .191/.254/.321 over his past 236 turns at the plate. (He’d picked up the pace again of late, going 11-for-28 with a pair of homers and three doubles in his past eight games.)
The demotion to the minors won’t cost Abrams in terms of big league service, arbitration trajectory or free agent timeline. He’d already accrued a full year of service in 2024 at the time he was sent down. He’ll finish the year with 2.130 years of service, making him a very likely Super Two player who’ll be eligible for arbitration four times rather than the standard three. The first of those four — assuming he indeed qualifies as a Super Two player — will come this offseason. He’s under club control through the 2028 season.
The Juan Soto Blockbuster Has Been Even Better Than Expected
Last winter's Juan Soto trade was the biggest in a long while -- probably the most significant since the previous Soto deal. The Padres were slashing payroll and didn't want to accommodate a salary north of $30MM for his final year of arbitration. Extension talks never got off the ground. The Padres were about to lose four potential starting pitchers to free agency, leaving them with Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, and a bunch of questions.
San Diego determined to build their return for Soto around MLB-ready starting pitching. They'd not only shed payroll but directly address the biggest need on the roster. It's impossible to trade Juan Soto and not deal a huge hit to the lineup, but the Padres could mitigate some of that loss by bringing back rotation help. Even the San Diego front office probably didn't envision it turning around the staff to this extent.
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Why The Nationals Could Pursue A Juan Soto Reunion
The regular season hasn’t even drawn to a close yet, but there’s already ample anticipation regarding what a potential Juan Soto free agency will look like. The 26-year-old superstar will hit the market as the top free agent and one of the most coveted talents in the history of free agency. A bidding war between the Yankees and Mets is already widely expected, and big-money clubs like the Dodgers, Blue Jays and Giants have also been speculated as potential landing spots. Nary a major free agent goes by without Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller at least throwing his hat into the ring. Other clubs will surely be in the mix.
Among the other potential suitors, writes Jorge Castillo of ESPN, could be Soto’s original club. The Nationals “would love a reunion” with Soto, reports Castillo, though it’s not yet clear whether ownership will be willing to offer more than they did when Soto rejected a 15-year, $440MM extension. That decision floored many fans, but it’s proved prudent in the long run. That 15-year term would’ve included Soto’s final two arbitration seasons. He earned a combined $54MM in those two seasons anyhow. Soto need “only” top the remaining $386MM to come out ahead on the gambit, and it would be stunning if he fell short of that mark, given his age, track record and sensational platform season for free agency.
Could that offer still come from the Nationals? It’s impossible to know precisely where the Lerner family (who own the Nationals) lie in terms of their comfort level, but there’s reason to believe they could put forth an even larger offer than last time.
For one, the Nats were in the nascent stages of a rebuild when they made that original offer to Soto. Max Scherzer and Trea Turner had been traded to the Dodgers at the prior season’s deadline. The Nationals weren’t close to competing then but are exponentially closer to doing so now, thanks in no small part to the return they received from trading Soto in the first place. MacKenzie Gore has seized a rotation spot. CJ Abrams has solidified himself as their shortstop, second-half slump notwithstanding. Outfielder James Wood was ranked the top prospect in baseball when he debuted in July. Fellow outfielder Robert Hassell III and left-hander Jarlin Susana are still in the minors.
It also bears emphasizing that the Lerner family was exploring a potential sale of the team at the time. That process began early in 2022. Several potential ownership groups spoke to the current owners about the possibility, but two years later, managing principal owner Mark Lerner (the son of the late Ted Lerner, who passed away in 2023) publicly stated that his family is no longer looking to find a buyer. “We have determined, our family has determined, that we are not going to sell the team,” Lerner told the Washington Post in February.
That shift in long-term planning obviously carries ramifications with regard to how the Lerner family might allocate its resources. While putting forth a $400MM+ offer amid a potential sale process shows a clear willingness to spend, there were also presumably limits as to how much money ownership wanted to put on the long-term books. Any interested buyers would effectively be on the hook for paying out the remainder of that sum, after all — particularly since the offer reportedly did not contain any deferred money (a departure from their prior big-money contracts, which nearly all included deferrals).
Now, more than two years after that extension offer was made, the Nats are closer to contention and have a far cleaner payroll outlook. This is the final season of Patrick Corbin‘s six-year contract. The only players guaranteed any money beyond the current year are Stephen Strasburg, whose career is over but who is still signed through 2026, and catcher Keibert Ruiz, whose relatively modest $50MM extension runs through 2030 and comes with a $6.25MM average annual value. Consider that at their peak in 2019, the Nationals finished the season with a hefty $205MM payroll, per Cot’s Contracts. The Nats can absolutely afford to make a competitive offer and build out a team around him and the rest of their emerging core.
On that note, while any team would move pieces around to make room for Soto in its outfield mix, that likely wouldn’t even be necessary for Washington. The Nats currently have Wood, defensive standout Jacob Young and top prospect Dylan Crews in the outfield. Young is an elite defender but carries just a .255/.315/.336 batting line on the season. He could easily be shifted to a fourth outfield role, or he could play center regularly while the trio of Wood, Crews and Soto rotated through the two corner spots and designated hitter. Getting at-bats for all of those names wouldn’t be particularly challenging.
On top of all that, the Nats themselves still know Soto as well as or better than any team in the game. The majority of the team’s key figures were all in place when they originally signed and developed Soto. Mike Rizzo has been the Nats’ president of baseball operations and general manager since being hired back in 2009, when Soto was 11 years old. The Lerner family has owned the Nats since the former Expos moved from Montreal to D.C. in 2006. Davey Martinez managed every game of Soto’s big league career before he was traded to the Padres. There are of course others in the organization, ranging from coaches to scouts to executives, who are holdovers from Soto’s days in D.C.
The broader question is likely one of whether Soto would want to return to a Nationals club that doesn’t have the look and feel of a present-day contender. He’d need to buy into the team’s farm system and the future and upside of players like Wood, Crews, Abrams, Gore, top prospect Brady House and others. His familiarity with Rizzo and particularly Martinez (with whom he’d interact on a daily basis) would certainly be a prominent factor, but Soto has also surely built rapport with key officials in both San Diego and the Bronx as well. Unless the Lerner family absolutely blew every other bidder out of the water, Soto going back to Washington would likely need to be at least somewhat based on nostalgia and fond memories of his original organization.
Still just 25 years old (26 in October), Soto is poised to land the largest contract ever signed by a position player — likely the largest contract in MLB history in terms of net present value. Shohei Ohtani‘s 10-year, $700MM deal is the current benchmark, although given the colossal slate of deferrals on the deal, the contract’s net present value is nowhere close to that total sum; Ohtani’s deal comes with a $46MM luxury hit, and the MLBPA calculated the NPV to be $437.5MM.
Some might wonder whether Soto and agent Scott Boras would consider a similar deal, though Boras’ comments in the aftermath of that Ohtani deal suggest otherwise. Speaking with Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic, Boras suggested that the deflated NPV of Ohtani’s contract was generally underwhelming for a player of his caliber: “The market remains status quo. No average annual value at or above $44 million. Clear evidence of a strategic and managed effort.” Readers can form their own opinions on the merit of that stance, but it seems to be a clear indicator that Boras will be looking to set a more concrete new precedent in terms of present-day value when he takes his own unicorn free agent to the market this winter.
Soto is already a four-time All-Star, four-time Silver Slugger winner (he’ll win a fifth this season), a World Series champion and a Home Run Derby champion. He’s a lifetime .285/.421/.533 hitter in the majors, and he’s currently enjoying the best 162-game season of his career, on a rate basis. He’s slashed .289/.418/.580 with a career-high 39 home runs while walking in 18% of his plate appearances against just a 16.2% strikeout rate. He’s on track for a fifth straight season walking more often than he’s struck out.
By measure of Statcast, Soto ranks in the 94th percentile or better among all MLB players in terms of average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, barrel rate, bat speed, chase rate, expected batting average, expected slugging percentage, expected wOBA and walk rate. He’s ultra-durable, averaging 155 games per season from 2021-23, and will match or exceed that pace again in 2024, barring a late injury. Defense has been a knock on him in the past, but Soto has delivered the best defensive grades of his career this season. Statcast credits him with 97th percentile arm strength. He has below-average but not plodding speed, which does limit his range and restrict him to the outfield corners.
The Nats and other clubs know all this quite well, of course. Soto is due for a record-setting contract. Everyone expects as much. The incumbent Yankees figure to be viewed as the favorites, but competition will be steep, and there are plenty of reasons to think Soto’s original club could emerge as a genuine threat in the bidding war to come.
Yankees Notes: Stanton, Soto, Brubaker
Giancarlo Stanton hasn’t played since June 22 due to a left hamstring strain, and the slugger said at the time of his 10-day IL placement that he figured to be out for around four weeks. That timeline look to be pretty accurate, as Yankees manager Aaron Boone told MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch and other reporters that Stanton is “really close” to being activated from the injured list. While Stanton won’t be ready on Friday for the Yankees’ first game of the second half, Boone said Stanton’s return isn’t expected to last much beyond that point, and Stanton might not even require a minor league rehab assignment.
Considering how injuries have often wrecked havoc on Stanton’s career, missing “only” a month counts as a relatively good outcome for the former NL MVP. Leg and hamstring injuries in particular have plagued Stanton, and (as Hoch noted) this is the eighth time Stanton has visited the injured list during his six seasons in a Yankees uniform.
These injuries started to impact Stanton’s production in 2022-23, but he got off to a nice start this year, hitting .246/.302/.492 with 18 homers in 281 plate appearances. Usually hitting either fifth in the lineup or as the cleanup hitter behind Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, Stanton provided some pop to a New York batting order that has been lacking in consistency apart from those two superstars. In the 19 games since Stanton hit the IL, the Yankees have gone 6-13, and enter the All-Star break a game behind the Orioles for the AL East lead.
The trio of Soto, Judge, and Stanton is a fearsome sight for opposing pitchers, but beyond Stanton’s hamstring issue, Soto is also not exactly 100 percent as he continues to play through soreness in his right hand. Soto has been bothered by the injury since hurting his hand on a slide into home plate in a June 28th game against the Blue Jays, even he has continued to mash at the plate.
“I’ve been grinding through it,” Soto told Hoch and other reporters today. “It’s right there. It’s been good so far. I’ve just got to make sure I hit the ball.” The star outfielder is still planning to play in the All-Star Game, which Boone said is fine with the team as long as Soto is comfortable.
In other Yankees injury news, JT Brubaker‘s recovery from Tommy John surgery has hit a roadblock in the form of an oblique strain. Brubaker suffered the injury during his Triple-A rehab outing last Thursday, and has been shut down for the time being.
It’s another tough blow for Brubaker, who hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2022 and missed all of the 2023 season recovering from his TJ procedure. New York acquired the right-hander from Pittsburgh at the start of this season with an eye towards using Brubaker as rotation depth once he was healthy, and he has tossed 13 2/3 innings over five rehab games to date. The severity of the strain isn’t yet known, but given how more serious types of oblique strains can linger, it is possible that Brubaker might not be able to return to action this season.
Soto: Plan To Address Contract “In The Offseason”
Juan Soto will be the top free agent in the upcoming class and is trending towards the largest contract in MLB history — assuming one counts the Shohei Ohtani deal based on its approximate $461MM net present value. There has never been much doubt that the 25-year-old superstar would test the market, even after Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner left open the possibility of discussing a midseason extension last month.
Soto implied as much this evening in a conversation with Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Asked by Heyman whether he expected the Mets to be involved in the bidding, Soto replied “we will see. In the offseason we will figure it out. I’ll let [agent Scott Boras] do his thing. We’re going to see.” The three-time All-Star followed up by speaking glowingly of his time with the Yankees.
Steinbrenner’s comments aside, the Yankees presumably haven’t been all that optimistic about keeping Soto off the market. GM Brian Cashman said in February that the team fully anticipated Soto would test free agency (link via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). The Yankees will certainly make a significant effort to keep him in the Bronx next winter.
Soto famously declined a 14-year, $440MM extension offer from the Nationals before Washington traded him in 2022. The Padres similarly expressed a desire to work out a long-term arrangement in the early portion of last offseason. That obviously didn’t materialize and he was traded again. There aren’t any publicly reported specifics on contract terms that either San Diego or the Yankees have floated. Heyman said last month (X link) that Soto had declined seven extension offers within the last five years. That has long made it seem like a foregone conclusion that he and his camp would take things to free agency.
He may well do so coming off the best season of his career. Soto hit his 19th home run of the season tonight and is on pace to top last year’s personal-high 35 longballs. He carried a .305/.431/.563 slash line into today’s game. That’d be the highest slugging percentage he’s posted in a 162-game schedule. It’d be the second-best on-base mark he has managed in a full season.
AL East Notes: Soto, Kremer, Tiedemann
Yankees fans received an update regarding the status of superstar outfielder Juan Soto today after he underwent imaging on his forearm yesterday. Manager Aaron Boone spoke to reporters (including MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch and Brendan Kuty of The Athletic) this afternoon prior to the club’s scheduled game against the Dodgers about the young star’s status and noted that while a trip to the injured list “remains a possibility” for Soto, the club doesn’t currently anticipate one being necessary. Even so, Boone added that it could be at least “a couple” of days before Soto returns to the lineup as the club continues to be cautious about the injury.
That Soto is expected to avoid an IL stint is surely a relief for the Yankees, as their biggest offseason acquisition has carried the club offensively alongside Aaron Judge to this point in the season. Even by his own lofty standards, the young star has gotten off to an excellent start this year with a .318/.424/.603 slash line in 290 trips to the plate since the Yankees acquired him from the Padres in a blockbuster deal that sent a multi-player packaged headlined by righty Michael King to San Diego. A significant absence by Soto would be particularly devastating for the Yankees seeing as the 25-year-old has helped to pick up the club’s offense amid struggles from key regulars like Anthony Rizzo and Gleyber Torres.
With Soto temporarily out of action, Trent Grisham figures to receive regular starts in the outfield, taking on the center field job and kicking Judge back to his previous role as the club’s everyday right fielder. If Soto were to ultimately require a trip to the shelf, it’s possible the Yankees could turn to youngster Everson Pereira to fill out their outfield mix. The well-regarded prospect struggled in his first taste of big league action last year but has slashed a solid .265/.346/.512 at the Triple-A level this season.
More to come…
- Orioles right-hander Dean Kremer is making progress in his rehab from a triceps strain that sent him to the injured list late last month, as manager Brandon Hyde told reporters (including Jacob Calvin Meyer of the Baltimore Sun) earlier this afternoon. As Meyer notes, Hyde indicated that Kremer is set to throw a bullpen within the next few days, with Hyde adding that “everything is trending in the right direction” regarding his recovery. While Hyde did not place a timeline on the right-hander beginning a rehab assignment to the minor leagues, a speedy return by Kremer would surely be a huge relief to an Orioles club that will be without both Tyler Wells and John Means for the remainder of the 2024 campaign. As things stand, the club is relying on Albert Suarez, Cole Irvin, and Cade Povich to fill out the rotation behind Corbin Burnes, Kyle Bradish, and Grayson Rodriguez.
- Blue Jays top pitching prospect Ricky Tiedemann was thought to be on the cusp of his big league debut entering the 2024 campaign, but those plans were scuttled when he was sidelined just eight innings into his season by inflammation of the ulnar nerve in his elbow. While it’s certainly fortunate that the lefty avoided any structural damage, the injury has nonetheless left him sidelined for the majority of the season. Fortunately, Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi relayed earlier today that, according to Toronto manager John Schneider, Tiedemann threw a live bullpen yesterday where “everything went well.” Schneider went on to note that the next step for Tiedemann could be a rehab game either with Single-A Dunedin or perhaps with the club’s Florida Complex League team.
Steinbrenner: Current Payroll “Not Sustainable”
With a 35-17 record that leads AL clubs and trails only the Phillies in the NL, the Yankees have been among the very best teams in baseball to start the 2024 campaign. That being said, all that winning has come at a price: RosterResource pegs the club’s payroll at a whopping $302MM this season, trailing only the Mets and Dodgers for the third-highest in the league while surpassing the fourth-place Phillies by nearly $60MM. It appears that club chairman Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t plan to keep payroll at those top-of-the-line levels, however, as he told reporters (including Dan Martin of the New York Post) yesterday that payroll will be coming down in the future.
“I’m gonna be honest, payrolls at the levels we’re at right now are simply not sustainable for us financially,” Steinbrenner said, as relayed by Martin.
He went on to point to the luxury tax as a limiting factor on the club’s spending. New York’s payroll is just over $312MM for luxury tax purposes this season. As a club that has gone over the lowest threshold more than two seasons in a row, the Yankees are subject to a tax that escalates from 50% to 110% of the overage above the league’s base threshold of $237MM. That figures to put them on the hook for more than $58MM in luxury tax obligations this offseason, a figure that could increase further depending on midseason additions and contract incentives. That’s a hefty bill, particularly considering the fact that (as noted by Cot’s Baseball Contracts) the club’s 2024 payroll breaks the franchise record payroll of roughly $278MM that was set just last season. Prior to the last two seasons, the club’s payroll generally set in the $200MM and $250MM range.
Scaling back payroll could be feasible for the for the Yankees somewhat naturally, as the club has just under $182MM in guaranteed money on the books for next year per RosterResource. That figure does not factor in arbitration-level contracts for players such as Nestor Cortes, Jose Trevino, and Clarke Schmidt, nor does it include the possibility of the club picking up options on the services of veterans like Anthony Rizzo and Luke Weaver. Even considering that, however, it’s reasonable to expect the Yankees to have some room to cut down payroll and still add in free agency this winter.
Of course, the elephant in the room regarding the coming free agent class is superstar youngster Juan Soto, who is slated to hit free agency this fall ahead of his age-26 season. Acquired from the Padres in a blockbuster swap back in December, Soto has been everything the Yankees could have hoped for in his first 51 games with the club, slashing an incredible .313/.409/.569 with a 15.1% strikeout rate, a 14.2% walk rate, and 13 homers in 232 trips to the plate. Given how vital a one-two punch of Soto and Aaron Judge has been to the club’s success this winter, it’s hard to imagine the Yankees not aggressively pursuing a long-term deal with their newly-acquired star.
Steinbrenner himself indicated recently that he hopes to see Soto remain with the club “for the rest of his career,” suggesting that the Yankees at least plan to make an effort to retain him beyond this season. With Soto widely expected to land a contract that rivals the $460MM net present value of the Shohei Ohtani deal from this past offseason, it would seemingly be difficult to significantly lower the club’s payroll while retaining Soto via what could be a massive raise over his current $31MM salary.
That’s not to say it can’t be done, of course. Steinbrenner’s comments also made note of the club’s ability to retain Soto, as he noted that the club has a “considerable amount” of money coming off the books this winter in comparison to last year. Gleyber Torres and Alex Verdugo are both pending free agents who have combined to make more than $20MM this season, and it’s feasible to imagine the Yankees allowing the pair to walk in free agency before offering their roles to younger players such as Oswald Peraza and Jasson Dominguez.