Soto or Nowhere: The Official 2024 New York Yankees Off-Season Thread

[king1117]

Welp at this point what can they do lmaoooo smfh. Othani and the dodgers not going anywhere for the foreseeable future if we make it back to the series somehow which we probably won’t and if Soto leaves team is screwed. fukked up the best chance.

 

[Joe Sixpack]

What a disgrace


Aaron Judge is a total goofball

He can't be the Yankee Captain anymore after that shyt

Times like this is where the Yankees miss George

He would not put up with that bullshyt he would call dudes out

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

There are too many thoughts in my mind to form a detailed write-up of what should and what will happen this winter.

Broadly speaking, what I think should happen is the Yankees should clean house. I'm talking about firing Boone, firing Cashman, and not bringing back a single free agent (that means moving on from Torres, Kahnle, Holmes, Verdugo, Loaisiga, Trevino, and Hill -- Soto, would go elsewhere because he knows this team is weak). Stanton earned a ton of respect this postseason but that doesn't change the fact that he's wildly overpaid. Unfortunately he's not really movable unless they eat most or all of his remaining money. Rizzo gets bought out. LeMahieu is released? I'm not even sure if that's possible.

From a floor perspective, the pitching is fairly solid. Cole, Rodon, Schmidt and Gil are good enough.

This won't happen though because baseball is a business and the Yankees cannot afford a fan exodus in 2025. They will need those season ticket sales to hold up.

So I expect them to make a strong run at Soto and maybe a Japanese player or two.
Then Brian Cashman will do Brian Cashman things -- which is to say he will try to outsmart himself and bring in a couple of mediocre players that could "exceed value". After all, this is the guy who in the past year traded for Jon Berti, Jazz Chisholm and JD Davis. Real difference makers.

It's to be noted that this free agent class, Soto aside, is weak.

Who wants to throw big money to Willy Adames, Alex Bregman, Christian Walker, or Tyler O'Neill? I'm not even interested in Pete Alonso or Teoscar Hernandez. Not at their ages.

I think you guys have to open yourselves to the likelihood that this team is going to be treading water for a while...if they're lucky.
And if the Yankees DO remain division-winning contenders, it's going to require a ton of money, and a ton of reliance on veteran players past their prime.

They have to spend whatever number it takes to keep Soto both from a business and baseball standpoint. I don’t care if it’s 15 years for $800 million, they have to agree to whatever number he asks for. From a baseball standpoint if they lose him they’re the 2014-15 heat after LeBron left. An aging core with a shytload of holes in the boat that they won’t be able to patch up to cover a bad offense and they’ll hover a little over .500 best case scenario until Judge, Cole, and Stanton age out and then they have to rebuild the whole thing which if you know how the last decade has gone for the Heat, would be that much harder if they never truly hit rock bottom.


From a business standpoint losing Soto while keeping Boone and Cashman after losing your first World Series in 15 years and only your second in the last 20 years confirms to the fans that you don’t care about winning and are content with what 2023 looked like as the long term future of the franchise where they spent most of the year around last place and were at the bottom of every meaningful offensive metric besides total homers. There’s little reason for the fans to come to the stadium and pay the ridiculous prices we do for a team whose ceiling is being smoked in the divisional series by Houston, Baltimore, Boston, Tampa, or whatever other team in the AL is a contender in any given year. You’d be looking at a half empty stadium with the fans who are there more interested in starting chants that call for the firing of the front office and coaching staff than whatever is happening on the field. It cements the Yankees as a thoroughly second rate franchise the same way losing Judge would have. Look at what losing Dwight Howard in 2013 did to the lakers for example or what losing Mookie did to the Red Sox. If you lose Soto you may as well go 1998/2012/2018 marlins and blow the whole thing up to get the rebuild started sooner, but that’s bad business too because nobody is gonna spend what it costs to attend games here to watch a last place team that’s 5 years away from contending.

Hal already has an optics problem with his refusing to fire a GM who the fanbase despises and who most of the team’s living all time greats despise too along with his puppet manager who had no business ever managing a major league team. He’s already perceived as an apathetic failson who has disgraced his family name given how successful his dad was largely because Steinbrenner made winning the World Series his top priority while Hal publicly complains about the luxury tax, votes to cut the tax threshold by 14%, puts ads on the uniforms, and makes the games less accessible by putting some 15% of the schedule on 3 different streaming services. If he lost a player this young, talented, clutch, and loved by the fanbase as Soto, he’d instantly become as reviled here as John fisher is in Oakland and the fans in attendance would probably be more interested in leading sell the team chants than they would be in watching the team. That’s a scenario he and realistically speaking Major League Baseball can’t afford. His only option from a business standpoint both long and short term is ensure Soto stays for the rest of his career.




In the event Soto returns, next thing to do is fire Boone. The team needs a culture shock and someone to clean up the fundamentals. You’re never gonna win a title as the worst fielding, worst throwing, and worst baserunning team in the sport. They also can’t hit with men on under him and their going 1-10 with runners in scoring position last night is hit second biggest reason they lost. I say bring Torres back because the market is weak as fukk at second base and the season turned around once he was moved to the leadoff spot and they’ve needed a set guy there since Jeter retired. Once that’s resolved, trade whatever prospect you have to for a good first baseman because it’s been a decade of stopgap quality solutions now, get 2-3 bench guys who could fill in for stretches, get 1 more starter, and 2-3 arms from the pen. See what it would take to get mason miller from the A’s since they don’t care about keeping good players. With Soto they’re not far from a title. If this team simply had good fundamentals and hit with men on base they’d be up 3-2 or planning the parade right now.

Welp at this point what can they do lmaoooo smfh. Othani and the dodgers not going anywhere for the foreseeable future if we make it back to the series somehow which we probably won’t and if Soto leaves team is screwed. fukked up the best chance.

The dodgers weren’t world beaters though. They won 98 games this year. Great team, but hardly an untouchable juggernaut. The series should’ve gone the other way or be 3-2 Yankees right now, but the Yankees just can’t hit with men on base (1-10 with runners in scoring position last night) and they can’t make routine fielding plays. Any fundamentally sound team does those and with the players this team has, they win if they do those. We said all year the only team that could beat the Yankees was the Yankees. Look at Holmes and his 13 blown saves. 5 of them were due to bad fielding. Take those out and they have home field vs LA just for one example.

 

[Ku$h Parker]

]No Hate
No Disrespect
No

Just a GS'z for allMelYeah would be proud damnit

 

[tremonthustler1]

Welp at this point what can they do lmaoooo smfh. Othani and the dodgers not going anywhere for the foreseeable future if we make it back to the series somehow which we probably won’t and if Soto leaves team is screwed. fukked up the best chance.

I think if Soto bounces, this is an 83-85 win team max. The offseason class is really weak and not worth investing in, so we're just gonna reply on young guys and the Yankees' ability to develop them.

 

[wtfyomom]

Typical boone managed team, giving the other team multiple extra chances, cant run the bases, sloppy baseball but the second after the game the media made sure to tell you his job is safe, boone and cash could have sex with Hal’s wife and go 0-162 and keep their jobs

 

[Jean toomer]

Just by the post game interview Soto is gonna tell the Yankees to kick rocks. The team is soft and the manager is soft. Soto looked disgusted….

 

[Ethnic Vagina Finder]

Soto is gone. He wasn’t enough to over come the lack of pitching and hitting. And he couldn’t hid how bad Judge is in the post season.

And I feel bad for Cole who is wasting prime years playing for the Yankees.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

I think if Soto bounces, this is an 83-85 win team max. The offseason class is really weak and not worth investing in, so we're just gonna reply on young guys and the Yankees' ability to develop them.

Without Soto this is basically the same roster as the 2023 Yankees but 2 years older and with Chisholm so yeah healthy that’s an 85 win ceiling. Still no left fielder, no first baseman, a big question mark in centerfield, and major questions at shortstop to go with an unreliable rotation outside of the now 34 year old ace. That’s a grim future when the owner of the team only cares about cutting costs and the GM has developed 1 guy into a star in his 27 years on the job while most of his picks don’t even reach the major league level.

 

[tremonthustler1]

Without Soto this is basically the same roster as the 2023 Yankees but 2 years older and with Chisholm so yeah healthy that’s an 85 win ceiling. Still no left fielder, no first baseman, a big question mark in centerfield, and major questions at shortstop to go with an unreliable rotation outside of the now 34 year old ace. That’s a grim future when the owner of the team only cares about cutting costs and the GM has developed 1 guy into a star in his 27 years on the job while most of his picks don’t even reach the major league level.

that's why if Soto walks, I don't want the Yankees to pivot and blow a ton of money on declining players like Bregman, Alonso, etc. Might as well save money, regroup, go back to developing a new core of guys and then try again in 26.

If our new core if Dominguez, Sasaki, Murakami, Wells, Gil and maybe Volpe, that's a good nucleus. Compounding Soto leaving with more bad deals is just irresponsible.

 

[Jean toomer]

Without Soto this is basically the same roster as the 2023 Yankees but 2 years older and with Chisholm so yeah healthy that’s an 85 win ceiling. Still no left fielder, no first baseman, a big question mark in centerfield, and major questions at shortstop to go with an unreliable rotation outside of the now 34 year old ace. That’s a grim future when the owner of the team only cares about cutting costs and the GM has developed 1 guy into a star in his 27 years on the job while most of his picks don’t even reach the major league level.

This can’t be understated, Bob Watson was the developer. Cashman bought shiny stuff.