The Yankees Reportedly Didn't Offer Juan Soto A Free Suite For His Family And That's Why He Didn't Sign With Them...NOT The $800M From Steve Cohen (Wink, Wink)

We're 36 hours following the aftermath of Juan Soto signing with the New York Mets. Not sure what stage of grief I'm currently in, but it's certainly not a good one. Again, it's greatly helped that I haven't encountered Meek Phil or Chris Klemmer. In a dream world I never see them again. Nevertheless, it's time to move on. 

Okay, almost time. 

You see, what's happening right now is that Scott Boras is doing serious damage control for his client. Juan Soto didn't do anything illegal or bad, but he doesn't want it to seem like his client only cared about the money. So as a result you're getting leaked stories like a Yankee Stadium security guard having a bad encounter with one of Juan's family members earlier in the season. A simple one instance misunderstanding that surely had no impact on which team he signed. There's also now this suite situation that everyone is attempting to make into a big deal. 

(NY Post) All along, the Mets’ offers ran only slightly ahead, and it’s possible only relatively small things helped, too. The combination of perks that included a signing bonus of $75M (the Yankees offered $60M), escalators that can take the deal to $805 million, a no-trade clause, no deferrals (the Yankees also had none), the fifth-year opt-out (at age 30), and a suite for the Soto family probably helped push them over the finish line. 

The Yankees shouldn’t be faulted for bidding a whopping $760M, but they wouldn’t budge on the suite. The Yankees felt they couldn’t give a suite to Soto when Judge pays for his suite, and even Derek Jeter paid. They were willing to discount a suite but not alter their precedent. 

Cohen didn’t give the suite much of a thought. When he has his eyes on a prize, he is singularly focused.

Ah yes, I'm sure the reason Juan Soto passed on signing with the Yankees was because they wouldn't give his family their own free suite. Something the organization didn't do for Jeter or Judge or anybody. Yep, that was it. Not the $800M that he's going to receive once Cohen triggers the mechanism in his contract after five reasons to negate his opt out. No, it was the suite. 

Now I'm not going to sit here and pretend the little things like a suite or a family member incident can't bother a player when he's deciding his future, but by no means are they the main reason. Those stories are out there right now to distract from the money and make you think the Yankees botched this. What this came down to was two-fold 1) money, a lot of it. An amount that Cohen refused to be outbid on. He was always going to top price between the New York teams. If Hal went to $775M, Steve was going to $815M. 2) Constant future investment in the team. Soto believed that the Cohen-Stearns duo would not rest as they built a championship team. Hal-Cashman cannot be relied upon for that equal motivation and determination. One team cares about the luxury tax, the other doesn't even know it exists. The money mattered most, but I also think this has a decent chunk of play when it came to Boras convincing his client where to go. 

Those are your reasons, not a suite. Sure it's going to attract a ton of trolls to mock the Yankees in the replies of every story, but it's all damage control to not make Soto look greedy. And this isn't sour grapes. He didn't owe the Yankees anything. He was here for one season, there's no loyalty here. At the end of the day the man wanted top dollar and nothing else. He's a mercenary. A cold-blooded killer who didn't care whether the fans constantly chanted his name. It was all about cold hard cash. If the Yankees final offer was $760M and the Mets were at $755M he'd still be in the Bronx and there'd be no talk about security guard incident or a free suite. 

Now if you're the Yankees, go trade for Kyle Tucker. As I said in my last blog about this, that's the one guy potentially available that help make this nightmare vanish. That's how good Tucker is. If the Astros aren't going to pay him the big money extension then it'd be smart to deal him for a haul similar to what the Padres did with Soto. Do you run the risk of the same thing happening? No doubt, but Cole and Judge aren't getting any younger. It's a risk you have to take and hope you're able to extend him. The trade is a pipe dream at best, but there's noise out there. Do whatever you can to make it happen.