Juan Soto Blockbuster Trade Is the Perfect Desperation Move for Imperfect Yankees | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

If it’s true that Shohei Ohtani was never likely to end up in New York, then you have to hand it to the Yankees for scoring the next-best player the winter market had to offer.

A day after the Yankees swung a rare trade with the Boston Red Sox for outfielder Alex Verdugo, none other than Juan Soto is also coming to The Bronx via a blockbuster with the San Diego Padres. Gold Glove-winning center fielder Trent Grisham is coming with him, as first confirmed by Joel Sherman of the New York Post.

For the Yankees, the reported cost is a hefty one consisting of five players: right-handers Michael King, Drew Thorpe, Randy Vásquez and Jhony Brito and catcher Kyle Higashioka.

After posting a 2.25 ERA in nine outings as a starter in 2023, King had been slated for the middle of the Yankees’ 2024 rotation. Thorpe and Vásquez were rated by MLB.com as the club’s No. 15 and No. 13 prospects. As throw-ins go, Brito and Higashioka are at least capable of handling major league roles.

But lest anyone bemoan what this could mean for the Yankees’ long-term future, let’s remember that this is Juan Soto we’re talking about.

Even if he’s only under club control through 2024 and reportedly unlikely to sign an extension, he’s coming to the Yankees with three All-Star selections, a World Series ring (something no Yankee has won since 2009) and well-earned creds as an elite hitter.

Let’s also remember that these are the Yankees we’re talking about. More specifically, the Yankees at a time when drastic action is needed following their worst season in three decades.

Soto Is Exactly What the Yankees Needed

There are reasons the Yankees went for Verdugo, Grisham and especially Soto.

Despite reigning American League MVP Aaron Judge’s best efforts, their outfield was simply awful this season. And while their offense was generally bad in averaging 4.15 runs and ranking fourth from the bottom of MLB with a .304 on-base percentage, it was especially punchless from the left side. Yankee left-handed hitters had a .298 OBP with 47 home runs.

The last time the Yankees got so few long balls from lefty hitters was back in 1975, when they got only 43. Albeit a year later, their eventual solution was to sign Reggie Jackson.

The Soto trade? Same vibes.

That he’s going to rake in 2024 hardly requires further explanation. Along with Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott, Mickey Mantle, Albert Pujols and Mike Trout, Soto is one of only six players to ever post a .400 OBP and 160 home runs through his age-24 season.

His .410 OBP from this year alone would have been of great help to the Yankees, which is to say nothing of how he would have broken up the general sameness of their lineup. He had more walks (132) than strikeouts (129), whereas no Yankee regular had a walk-to-strikeout ratio above 0.7. Theirs was a bad version of a three-true-outcomes offense.

Even after hitting a career-high 35 home runs, Soto also figures to be even more powerful as a Yankee. He’s not a pull-power guy by nature, but his 1.219 OPS and four home runs in seven games at Yankee Stadium surely hint at him taking regular advantage of its lefty-friendly dimensions.

“Anytime you have a 1.200 or 1.300 OPS anywhere, you enjoy it,” agent Scott Boras said of his client and Yankee Stadium, according to Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. “And the good thing for Juan Soto is he does that at a number of ballparks, but Yankee Stadium is one of them, if my memory serves me correct.”

When anyone thinks about what Soto and Judge could do as duo in 2024, there’s no need to play it safe. With good health, they could become only the fifth different pair of teammates to achieve a .400 OBP and 40 home runs in the same season.

Yet Problems Still Remain

Ah, but while the Yankees are surely better now, are they actually good?

They did, after all, need ample luck just to win 82 games this year. FanGraphs’ early projections portend better things for 2024, with the Yankees ranking sixth in projected WAR even before the Soto trade, but the specifics of that projection are crowded with ifs.

For example, that projection will bear out if Gleyber Torres has a career year and if Anthony Volpe elevates his hitting into league-average territory. It’ll also happen if Carlos Rodón, Anthony Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton bounce back from lost seasons.

Of those bets, the Rizzo one is worth taking because he’ll hopefully be over the concussion that derailed his strong start to this year. Otherwise, Torres kind of is who he is, there’s basically nothing in Volpe’s profile that hints at more offense to come and Rodón and Stanton were injury-prone 30-somethings even before both missed substantial time this season.

There’s also a potential downside to Soto and Verdugo coming aboard as new starters, and it’s that the Yankees will now need Judge to man center field:

The Yankees did play Judge regularly in center in 2022, but even that felt like getting away with something. The 6’8″, 272-pounder was the biggest dude since Dave Winfield to play at least 70 games in center. He hasn’t gotten smaller since then, while he has gotten older and has added another major injury to his less-than-spotless record.

The aura coming off the Yankees smacks of “This Had Better Work.” And in this American League East, it might not.

True, the Tampa Bay Rays are probably going to lose at least Tyler Glasnow, and maybe Randy Arozarena and Isaac Paredes as well. For their part, the Toronto Blue Jays are already missing Brandon Belt and Kevin Kiermaier. Elsewhere, the Baltimore Orioles and especially the Red Sox need starting pitching.

Save for the Red Sox, though, each of those clubs finished comfortably ahead of the Yankees in 2023. And even Boston nearly pulled it off, as it didn’t cede fourth place to New York for good until the middle of September.

This Can’t be the Yankees’ Last Blockbuster

All of the above is to say that the Yankees must do more to solidify themselves as a contender for the AL East title in 2024, much less the World Series.

It’s a good thing, then, that going full “Evil Empire” seems very much possible. If the Soto trade was the turn of the key, the revving of the engine may come in the form of a potentially $300 million deal with Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Per Jon Morosi of MLB.com, the Yankees will meet with the 25-year-old ace on Monday:

“The Yankees are telling people they’re ahead of the pack on Yamamoto,” one AL executive told Bob Klapisch of NJ.com. “Like, way ahead.”

What Andy Martino of SNY teased about the Yankees being willing to exceed the $297 million so-called “Cohen Tax” in 2024 would thus seem to be spot-on. That’s going to cost them in terms of luxury tax penalties, but the only person who should be worried about that is managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner.

For all the flack he’s gotten over the years, it’s only becoming more apparent that Steinbrenner is more worried about winning. Last winter, he OK’d a league-leading spending spree. This winter, a trade for one of baseball’s best hitters…and that’s just so far.

The sense of urgency is appropriate. Even setting aside the club’s history as 27-time World Series champions, the Yankees are a team whose contention window was previously being propped open by just two guys: Judge and Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole. The former turns 32 on April 26. The latter just turned 33 in September.

A guy like Soto was needed to lend Judge and Cole a hand while their primes are still active. And as easy as it is to get hung up on his looming free agency, there’s no rule preventing the Yankees from re-signing him next winter if they can’t extend him beforehand. And if there’s an inside track, this may be it.

As it is, simply having Soto for 2024 will do for the bone the Yankees had to throw their increasingly impatient fanbase. Even if there is more work to be done, it’s a sign that the organization is just as sick as the fans are of the championship counter being stuck on 27.