The problem with the analogy is those teams were loaded with talent, while this one doesn’t have a first baseman, might or might not have a catcher, probably doesn’t have a shortstop (at least offensive), doesn’t have a left fielder, doesn’t have either a 2nd or third baseman depending on what happens with Torres & Jazz, has a massive question mark at centerfield, and needs batters for the bench.
A friend of mine used that same logic.
This is the part that gets me too. The refusal to play the young guys unless injuries force them to. It’s a completely incoherent way to run your team to fill the margins and half the lineup with stopgaps who are playing out of position.
Hal has to realize that he can’t afford to lose Soto. Whatever it’ll cost to keep him, it’ll cost more to lose him. It’d be a 2010-11 cavaliers season type atmosphere in the stadium with very few sellouts if any, but the fan anger would be directed at the owner and front office as opposed to the player who left. That team would have a ceiling of 85 wins and an early playoff exit regardless of who they face for 2-3 years before Judge and Cole decline and then the bottom falls out. It would probably also cause future free agents to pass on them because they wouldn’t trust the team to make the effort to field a proper contender long term like how Albert Pujols and Jason Giambi passed on the A’s in the winter of 2001 and the marlins in the winter of 2011 because they didn’t trust the team’s commitment to winning. It would instantly turn the perception of the Yankees (especially after how many stars they passed on from 2017-22) into that of a second rate franchise like the cowboys or bulls who still milk 90’s nostalgia to sell tickets and merchandise when they haven’t been relevant since.
It’d be Kevin Durant joining the warriors basically but stretched out to a decade. That’d be bad for baseball. The Yankees would immediately become totally irrelevant and with the rest of the AL being weak, the dodgers might only have one challenge while winning 115+ in a very anticlimactic season whose outcome was a foregone conclusion before it even began. Great for the dodgers, but bad for everyone else.If the Dodgers get Soto
Nah I gotta stop you right here, because you can't say this, when you were perfectly fine with letting Judge walk with Hicks, Donaldson, and IKF still wasting AB's.
