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    • Free agent rumors follow the Yankees to the World Series
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    Free agent rumors follow the Yankees to the World Series

    Kathleen William Posted on

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    LOS ANGELES – Vast riches beyond his wildest dreams await him in just a few weeks. His impact in just one season with baseball's most storied franchise has brought him back to the game's biggest stage.

    But deep down, Juan Soto knows that his 2024 season as a New York Yankees mercenary has been so fantastic, and his bank account will be so rich once he hits free agency, that the meaning of it all – the definition of success – ​​that is based on the result of this World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

    “Not yet. Not yet. “I have one more step to go – and that's winning the World Series,” Soto said Thursday at Dodger Stadium, on the eve of the Yankees' first World Series appearance since 2009.

    “That’s one of the things people never forget – you can be the best player. You can do whatever you want. But at the end of the day, people remember you for winning a World Series and what you did for this community.”

    Especially in New York.

    Soto celebrates his 26th birthday on FridayTh birthday by playing in Game 1 of the World Series at Dodger Stadium, a moment that would be a career highlight for 99% of players his age. But Soto, while still a relative infant in the big leagues, has accomplished so much in his short time.

    He was a World Series champion at 20 — or 21, as that birthday passed when the 2019 Washington Nationals won Game 7 of that World Series. When he was 23, he was traded, the Nationals faded from contention, and Soto turned down a $440 million contract extension that, as crazy as it may sound, was a bit of a low-bag offer.

    His time as an international and San Diego Padre almost felt like a prelude when the Padres sent him to New York in a true win-win deal last December. Nothing against those markets, but the stakes created by the deal were undeniably enormous.

    A one-year rental – with no guarantee that he would stay in the Bronx longer. An alliance with the great Aaron Judge, who needed a left-handed running mate in the middle of this Yankee lineup.

    And the idea that any Yankee tenure that doesn't end with winning the last game of the year is something of a failure – even if it's just a year.

    “This organization is based on championships. You’re either a champion or you’re not,” slugger Giancarlo Stanton, a Yankee since 2018 and now in his first World Series, said Thursday. “Terms of office are based on that. It's not based on, you're great, but almost.

    “Are you a champion or not?”

    “It’s built for the biggest stage”

    Soto knows the deal and knew it from day one, as he says. And it would be entirely reasonable for Yankee fans or even Soto himself — not that his competitive nature would allow it — to consider that he's already done enough.

    What a cameo in the Bronx: 41 home runs, 109 RBIs, an OPS of .989 and, just along the way, a Gold Glove finalist nod in right field that matched his stunning and career-best performance of 8.8 Wins Above Replacement only substantiated.

    And as Yankee legends emerge in October, consider this box checked: Soto's menacing swing, culminating in a three-run go-ahead 10thTh-inning home run to clinch the American League Championship Series against Cleveland and catapult New York back into the Fall Classic.

    “It’s built for the biggest stage,” Stanton says. “He can handle anything. He’s a great player, a generational player, so I don’t think it worries him too much.”

    Five years ago, Soto hit a stunning home run against then-Houston Astro Gerrit Cole in the first game of the 2019 Series. Now they're teammates, Cole the Game 1 starter and the one most likely to produce Soto's 19 hit.

    More memories are on deck.

    “It will be very special for me and my family,” he says. “It’s always great to be back and have those memories and share them with this group of guys.

    “This group is truly special and I’m lucky to have them.”

    And then what?

    Soto deftly dodged numerous questions about his future Thursday, a far more pleasant experience than when he was in that part of Dodger Stadium's center field plaza. It was 2022, Soto's rejection of the Nationals' extension offer had been rejected days earlier, and now Soto was sullenly facing a media scrutiny at the All-Star Game.

    “That was crazy. And it was hot too,” he remembers.

    But for Soto, the clouds never stay long. He won the Home Run Derby that night, was traded to San Diego weeks later and landed in the 2022 NLCS.

    Well, that moment of truth – and a free agency that can't be denied, especially when teammates Stanton and Jazz Chisholm begged Yankee management to pay this man after his ALCS heroics.

    His agent, Scott Boras, is known for demanding top dollar but less known for his abilities as a human shield.

    “Scott does a really good job and doesn’t give me a hard time. He took all the bullets,” says Soto. “Right now I’m just focused on playing baseball. And whatever comes next, I leave it up to him.

    Conditions couldn't be much better for a Yankee reunion. Soto is exuberant with the love he has for his teammates and the bond he has developed. It fits the New York stage perfectly. And love is mutual.

    “He’s a superstar,” says manager Aaron Boone, “and he’s incredibly easy to be around.”

    Half a billion dollars, one championship window

    In December the suitors come knocking on the door. San Francisco, Toronto, the crosstown Mets and perhaps Philadelphia are among the sleeper cells the Yankees will be most worried about.

    All can offer the Soto numbers worth half a billion dollars. Most can offer a credible chance at a championship.

    And beyond money, that remains priority #1.

    “Every player wants to be happy where he is. At the end of the day you’ll be really happy if you win,” he says. “Wherever you have the chance to win a championship, you will be happy and excited to play for them.

    “That’s the biggest mindset: Where’s the biggest opportunity? And go from there.”

    Friday night, the Yankees and Soto can work to cap off this very special one-year agreement. And perhaps make the thought of resolving it seem impossible.

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    Kathleen William
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