The rumor that the Yankees will cap their final Juan Soto offer at $40 million annually because they can’t offend Aaron Judge (who makes $40M) is a “lie,” according to a person familiar with their thinking. “No one has ever said anything like that,” the person added. (Beyond that, Judge, a team guy, wants the team to be great.)
The Yankees are going to make a big Soto effort, and one higher-up guesses the biggest competition comes from the Mets, Giants and Jays.
The Jays are indeed expected to play for Soto. Vlad Guerrero Jr., like Judge, would prefer Soto on his team.
The Giants and Jays both tried to trade for Soto when the Yankees made the Padres deal that turned out great for both teams.
Personally, I never count out the Dodgers.
The Yankees’ calls to play it conservatively and go with Alex Verdugo over Jasson Dominguez, Jon Berti/Oswaldo Cabrera over Ben Rice and Clarke Schmidt over Luis Gil are paying off so far.
The Padres are a great story. But their call to keep out Fox star sideline reporter Ken Rosenthal after he wrote about Manny Machado’s “throwgate” was unprofessional.
MLB didn’t wind up fining Machado as it apparently felt it was much ado about little.
