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106 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.12.09)”
No hot takes on the Soto deal yet? Cmon people!
The Mets were going to outbid the Yankees no matter what.
I don’t like these 15 year deals
Hubert claimed victory on the last thread.
My understanding was that Cohen had made clear he would not be outbid.. So I am not sure why anyone would be surprised.
It’s a long deal but will likely only be 2 x average salary in 10 years
Steve Cohen doesn’t care about albatrosses. He’s willing to overspend for a HOF caliber player’s declining years so long as he gets value in their prime. The message was sent: there’s no player in the world that the Mets can’t outbid another team to buy. The one team with a wildcard to beat it is the Dodgers if a Japanese All-Star decides he only wants to play on the West Coast.
Cohen finally did his big one that’s actually more likely to be worth it. Great day to be a Mets fan. Now all we need is to bring Alonso back, trade McNeil for pitching, make Acuna your full time 2B, and sign a top of rotation starter. Mauricio coming back healthy is the wild card though. If he can keep hitting like he did before the injury and handle 3B, then the Mets won’t gave to re-sign Alonso. But..he’s homegrown so I’d rather keep him on the team
I suspected this was coming, but it still sucks. That Yankee lineup without him is… not great.
I dislikes Hal and he could never have won this crazy auction once it became clear that money was the only determining factor*, but this time his offer was absolutely fair (as an aside, my moral beliefs are strained more and more about professional sports**) so it is what it is.
Soto’s a great player, a generational one, he’ll do great in Queens, I don’t hate the Mets so I’m not particularly upset.
And I’m very curious to watch how Cashman will pivot his strategy now.
* Both Cole and Judge signed with the Yankees when more lucrative offers were on the table.
** From this perspective, crazy as it sound, I feel somewhat “relieved”
For the first time ever I’m advocating for a salary cap in MLB, the Dodgers and Mets must be stopped!
Although I don’t particularly want either one, I’d much prefer politicsblogger to MLBblogger. Clearly that’s just me. 🙂
Bless their little hearts. The Mets keep trying. Hopefully, they don’t run out of money. You don’t want Bobby Bonilla showing up to Citi Field demanding his check.
Of course, advocate for one now that the Mets are the ones spending the money. The Steinbrenners did this stuff for generations, Cohen is just beating them at their game with 4 times the value.
I am, too, but more in a rubbernecking at the 10 car pileup kind of way.
The last time the Yankees were outbid for one of their own stars (Cano), Cashman ushered in the worst Yankee era since the early 90’s by handing out big deals to Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann, and a washed Carlos Beltran. This one has “overpay Pete Alonso” written all over it.
Remember when Severino told his ex-teammates that they only have two good hitters in their lineup? Now its only one good hitter.
He was always gping to be underutilized on offense for us relative to the Nets because he’s the 3a option here and was #1 option there. That’s fine though. There are going to be Knicks injuries or nights where has a good matchup and those excess skills will lead to a big night and extra win here or there.
However, because we also have Towns/Brunson on defense, we need the Suns version that focuses more on efficiency and defense. That’s where the LEGITIMATE criticism comes from. We paid a lot for a high level defender and he hasn’t been that overall. But I do think he’s getting better.
I haven’t changed my view at all. I think they are going to take a good look at this team as is and then take a few weeks to look at Mitch and perhaps even some Towns/Mitch. If they think this is more or less a finished product they will go with it. But if they think they need a bigger interior defender that can shoot 3s to pair with Towns, the search will begin at the deadline and guys like Mitch, Precious and even one of the young payers will become available.
I 100% agree that the price paid is a big part of why he’s taking so much heat, but I think the expectation was that the pairing of OG and Bridges (and Hart) would give us enough perimeter defense, switching ability and help defense that the overall defense could be top 10 even with Towns and Brunson in the lineup.
At least that’s what I think the team was thinking coming into the season. IMO no one was/is worried about his shooting or that he’s not scoring 20+ per game. He was never going to score 20+ a game given all the firepower on this team. 3 point shooting is loaded with variance. If there was anything to even think about a little on offense it was the form change, but that could be fixed. His offense is a non issue. No one that’s serious is worried about his offense.
Here is the first comment on a Fangraphs article about the Soto signing from an anonymous Yankee fan. As you can see, he’s handling it with the dignity and poise you’ve come to expect from their fanbase (with the exception of Hubert, of course):
I am actually a happy Yankee fan today fwiw. This regime of Hal, Cashman, and Boone needs to bottom out so it can be flushed out, and Soto was good enough to help them fool the general public. He was lipstick on their pig.
Bringing back Boone was a straight show of contempt for their fans. We know you don’t value us, but that’s just rubbing it in our face.
And for Hal on the eve of the Soto bidding to broadcast to the world at the owners meeting that the Yankee payroll is unsustainable and needs to go down was the most narcissistic, self defeating horsehit I have seen from an owner other than James Dolan’s band.
These guys are killing the Yankees.
Gonna be hilarious when the Yankees are back in the World Series next year and they won’t be facing the Mets.
I was also happy as a baseball fan bc this Dodgers hegemony looks real and is too much for me. The Yankees were never going to do anything about it, but Mets are at least going to try.
I will be gladly chant Beat LA when the Mets are kicking our ass in the subway series.
World Series, eh? You guys better get going in the Winter Meetings, then. I’ve seen that lineup, and it has more holes in it than Mikal Bridges’s jumper right now.
Maybe Cashman can be like Billy Beane after the A’s lost Jason Giambi to the Yankees and we’ll see a sequel to Moneyball in the Bronx.
We will call it Moneyball 2: The Yankees are now the NYC Povery Franchise.
Not really, Strat. It’s like having a Lamborghini for your commute when you have no clothes for your job.
Bridges is the luxury item we don’t need, and our defense is the clothes we don’t have.
Most people would think trading the Lamborghini for a Honda and some clothes would be a good idea. But here I’m crazy for suggesting it.
Since our offer was in the ballpark I’ll at least give them a chance to put the team together before I get truly mad, but I’m bummed regardless. The guy was a joy to watch hit.
There’s definitely still an opportunity to put together a very good team, *maybe* even better in the short term if we really nail the signings. But I wanted him to go into the hall as a Yankee, and tend to think elite talent + flyer signings is a better formula than trying to sign 3/4 “good enough” players.
Biggest game of the season-maybe in Knicks history-tonight
The Yankees outside of Judge and Soto were broadly so bad/medicore that it would be possible to replace Soto in the aggregate, but idk if it’s possible with the free agent/trade market.
“…but I’m bummed regardless. The guy was a joy to watch hit.”
Still can. I hear they cover the Mets on TV, too…
Yankees are gonna need their young core of Volpe, Wells and Jasson to grow up real quick.
The Yankees will recreate Soto in the aggregate!
MoneyBall 2!
There is a nickname worthy of Hal, John Mara and Dolan – Scionide. I can’t believe that Dolan is the best of the lot.
Cashman is not the guy you want trying to play moneyball. He outbids other teams for great players, outbids teams for mediocre players, and outbids teams for bad players. He’s been cooked ever since the new Steinbrenners tightened the purse strings.
Baseball again?
Truer words have never been spoken
Oh Lord – the salt.
https://x.com/JomboyMedia/status/1865996412774662226
I’m old enough to remember the 1986 Mets but it’s pretty sad that signing Soto is the greatest moment in Mets history for many fans.
I think Cashman’s Moneyball credentials are being a bit undersold. He has thrown together pretty good bullpens without spending any money the last few years. You can attribute that to Blake if you want, but I mean, Cashman hired Blake, so he’d still deserve credit.
Over the last few years he’s snagged a good amount of cheap production from position players too e.g. Didi, Carpenter, Voit, Trevino, Tauchman, and Maybin (no particular order, off the top of my head).
He also has some brutal misses e.g. Rizzo, Gallo, the Donaldson fiasco, and Stanton (hard to get angry about the latter given his postseason track record but it’s objectively a very bad contract).
All in all, I’ll give him a shot. But if the offseason feels like a dud, not sure how much money I’ll be spending on chicken buckets in 2025.
Honestly my biggest wish for the Yankees is to make the stadium experience better, get some real food in there and open more gates on gamedays
Does anyone here really believe Cashman had a backup plan for losing Soto to FA?
He didn’t trade away half his farm to rent the guy out for one season. The guy made that move with a false confidence he would have him in pinstripes for an entire career no matter what Hal Steinbrenner says.
I got several classy congratulatory texts from my Yankee fan friends last night, including our very own CDiggy. Yankee fan Pete Yorn was the one who sent me the link to Passan’s tweet when the news broke, so I found out through Pete after five days of hitting “refresh” every ten minutes.
I’m not at all worried about the length of the contract. Elite strike zone judgment is a skill that ages well. I would think Soto will still be racking up .400 OBPs 10-12 years from now. He’s exceptionally durable and obviously hits enough to play any position.
Mets really need at least one more dependable starting pitcher that isn’t a reclamation project, and they need to figure out 1B/3B. The 2B/CF slots will probably be filled internally. We’re gonna be good!
That clip is funny, but a) it’s not like the south Bronx is paradise and b) every Yankee fan that I’ve talked to who has been to both concedes that Citi Field is superior to the new Yankee Stadium.
Of course it will be hard for Soto to get over the loss of nameless jerseys in only two colors or the need to keep his razor sharpened. But hey, $765 large dries a lot of tears.
As to World Series aspirations, baseball doesn’t always reward the stacked teams. Yanks will have as good of a shot as any team if the cookie crumbles their way. All they need is for Aaron Judge to play in the playoffs like he does in the regular season. Or at least as good as David Eckstein.
Some Yankees fans are like the mad ex-girlfriend with sour grapes who needs to bad mouth an ex who dumped them for another woman.
Noble, I think you’re 100% correct. Brian Cashman would do a very good job as the GM of the Oakland A’s.
Here he’s judged on his medium-to-big-ticket moves (including the ones who chooses not to make) and he’s been mostly awful on those for 20 years.
Because tonight and tomorrow will be toxic regardless… This Saturday, RJ made his 8th dunk of the season, finally surpassing OGs total from a single game.
Yankees didn’t trade any of the farm for Soto so nice try ras. I will say I prefer the Mets signing Soto than Boston.
Funny how Stanton, you know, the guy who actually played extremely well in the playoffs, seems like an afterthought now. If that monster could just stay healthy the the next couple of years, that’s one less thing for Cashman to worry about.
Back to basketball, the one thing about Mikal that sort of mitigates the draft pick haul we gave up for him. He is earning an AAV of $24M through next year. There was really not another player available at that cost who would be a potential difference-maker and would also fit under the second apron. It made the KAT acquisition possible.
Now all we need is for Bridges to play above his contract. Which he hasn’t thus far.
https://x.com/CalicoJoeMLB/status/1866159501730062376?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
I wouldn’t describe the players the Padres got for Soto as a “haul.” Michael King worked out for them and was one of their better starters, but the other three pitchers don’t look like much to me. SD did use one of them in a package to acquire Dylan Cease, so there’s that. Kyle Higashioka is a 34 year old catcher so I assume the Yankees aren’t heartbroken about losing him.
Even for a one year rental that trade worked out just fine for the Yankees. They got to the World Series and Soto played out of his mind. It was basically Michael King plus junk for one year of Soto.
The only one acting like an ass on this thread is a Mets fan, so whatever.
I’m pretty much on the “Bridges just needs to play defense” side of things. He’s fine on offense, and at $24mil is perfectly acceptable in his role if he returns to what he’s capable of there. Forget the acquisition cost – looking at where we are going forward, that would make a bigger impact than any other move, and we’d be in good shape once Mitch returned.
There’s at least a dozen guys out there we could have had for a single draft pick, making half Mikal’s money, and being just as productive as he has been so far. Dallas alone acquired several of them.
Let’s see him play to his contract with a little more consistency before we worry about him exceeding it.
Um, excuse me, sir. Its quite rude to call someone an ass. And I won’t have you talking about Z-Man that way, Rama. You’re projecting.
This is the best article on the Juan Soto signing yet. It was written by a Yankees fan, no less:
Drew Thorpe was a top 50-ish prospect on some lists, so he had some value. He was terrible for the White Sox but skipped AAA so maybe he can do a bit better. Still, not a crippling trade for NYY.
But the point still stands though. These were key pieces that the Yankees had in their farm system – Cashman didn’t trade them away with the intention of just getting one year of Soto and nothing else in return. Prellar was at least able to recoup some lost value when he traded with the Nationals to land Soto. Cashman did not because he was willing to gamble that Soto would be resigned for the rest of his career in pinstripes. He had no Plan B, no matter what the Yankees will say moving forward.
ONE guy was a prospect. The other two pitchers are non-prospects. Org filler. Michael King was a reliever for the Yankees that the Padres successfully converted into a starter.
Major league reliever, plus 50 FV-ish pitcher, plus org filler junk for a year of Juan Soto, who then helps you get to the World Series. Ridiculous to describe that as a “haul.”
That’s so funny JK, Scarlett Johansson actually texted me about the Soto deal after I had been refreshing for five days too. (Elite name drop btw, love his song Elizabeth Taylor and that video with Charlotte Mckinney was inspired)
I went to a playoff game at Citifield and it was a phenomenal experience. It’s such a nice venue, far far prefer it to Yankees stadium and I would even if I weren’t a Mets fan.
It is funny how few dunks RJ gets. That’s kind of where I settled on him. He just isn’t an elite NBA athlete. There is a heaviness about him that I think limits his ability to get easy buckets and defend. He will undoubtedly score a career high on us after I wrote that but what can you do.
Well, you are right here. Yankees prospects are usually overrated in the trade market. Cashman sure could use some of them right now though to engineer a trade for some lineup help to help Judge out.
“Um, excuse me, sir. Its quite rude to call someone an ass. And I won’t have you talking about Z-Man that way, Rama. You’re projecting.”
Lol, mea culpa. PS ras is boring, you need a new KB moniker…how about katatonic?
I want to, Z-Man. But last two names were Ntilikakilla and Barretcuda.
I feel that I should lay off nicknaming myself after KAT in order to preserve his Knicks career.
Semantics… they traded young players and their best minor league arm Drew Thorpe.
They gave up Michael king who pitched great for NY mostly out of the pen and SD converted him to a full time starter and he finished 7th in the NL Cy Young voting. He’s look pretty good in the NY rotation this year with Cole and Gil or as the closer at a $3,000,000 salary. Doesn’t become a FA til 2026.
Drew Thorpe was thew best arm in the NY organization off his 11-1 record in AA. He was then moved in a package for Dylan Cease who finished 4th in CY Yound voting.
Brito and Vasquez were both expendable young depth pieces, but they gave up two valuable assets on a flyer when everyone knew Cohen would be the highest bidder.
I mean, you still make the Soto trade every day of the week. The risk of him walking after a year was built into the price, obviously. It was very much a “one year of Juan Soto” price and the Yankees did in fact almost capitalize on it. They didn’t, so the Captains of Hindsight will do their thing. No regrets about the trade from me though.
Yankees just had the AL ROY and 3rd place finisher, have a Top 20 prospect who will be starting in the OF next year and a SS entering his 3rd year who was a Top 15 prospect and has already won a GG.
Yankees are actually pretty good at developing players and trading away ones who won’t come back to haunt them.
I thought the price they paid for Soto was light at the time of that trade. Pitching prospects get hurt a lot. King had a great season for SD but the Yankees got 8 freakin’ WAR from Soto and went to the World Series. You deal with replacing Michael King in some other way.
Yeah I mean there should be no regrets whatsoever about the trade and I was hoping they kept him no matter the cost. But he left which was always a strong possibility and now they have to pivot and find ways to improve the roster. They should still be able to put together a roster that wins 95 games again next season.
Trying my best to figure out who the hell is posting 25% of the comments on this thread, none having to do with the Knicks. No idea, but troll and the aforementioned ass springs to mind. Pretty pathetic but hey you might root for the Nets which would explain your behaviour.
Yeah, if I were a Yankees fan, I would have zero regrets about the haul. Given Judge’s playoff debacle, Soto was clearly the #1 reason they had a puncher’s chance in the World series, or even got there in the first place. Of course, I have no idea what it’s like to be a fan of a team that thinks anything short of raising another championship banner is a failure. Maybe if I’m still breathing in 2040 when the Mets, after a 5-6 WS wins, lose out on re-signing a MVP-level rental after giving up some pitching prospects and losing in the World Series I’ll feel otherwise.
In fact, I’m kinda pissed that the Mets didn’t top the Yankees’ offer for Soto last year…and THEN re-sign him. Maybe we’d have our first WS win since 1986!
Speaking about tonight’s game I thought for sure this was gonna be a trap game that would result in a loss but wasn’t expecting to lose on Saturday and that effort might have them more focused for tonight. Knicks have been good this season with responding with a great game following a poor performance, although if KAT is out again then it might be a different story.
It isn’t 20-20 hindsight to question renting a great player for one season at the cost Michael King under control at cheap money for 3 seasons and a key piece that landed one of the best pitchers in the game.
fuck it
I’m expecting a nice bounce-back win tonight.
The Raptors traded their all-time franchise leader in almost every major category plus a young center plus a 1st round draft pick for what turned out to he a one-year rental and got the same results the Yankees got: a trip to the finals with a reasonable chance to win it all with some luck. Not sure whether Torontians whined and fussed over stupid management and bad ownership or not. Would be funny if they did.
In case you were looking for an appropriate place to comment about baseball.
I’m kind of enjoying the baseball chatter as I don’t follow the sport closely at all (probably doubled my knowledge this morning), and there’s not a huge amount of basketball to talk about that isn’t revisiting old arguments that are stultifying and repetitive in the extreme.
Tonight I have a two-hour call that I have to run, but my computer will be in front of the TV with the sound off. I’m hoping it’s not too obvious that I’m looking over the laptop. Luckily the camera’s on top of the screen.
We’ll see if I can add the Knickerblogger game thread to the multi-media affair…
Tonight’s thread has epic possibilities…
Ha, Katz couldn’t stay away from the Knicks entirely. From his latest piece on the team in The Athletic, this nice tidbit:
“The Knicks average 124.1 points per 100 possessions on plays that follow a Towns defensive rebound, according to Second Spectrum. That’s an elite offense, but it’s not necessarily the Knicks’ best option, assuming Towns and Hart can both recover it. If no one else is near, they can unleash Hart to rush up the court and either create for his teammates or go into that left-to-right step-through that everyone knows is coming yet seems to work each time. The Knicks average an unthinkable 135.1 points per 100 possessions after Hart’s defensive rebounds.
Think about it like this: That’s the mathematical equivalent of a 45-percent 3-point shooter rising from deep.”
To me, the most unexpectedly impressive thing about KAT has been his outlet passes off of his defensive rebounds. Mitch never did it, and iHart was just so-so at it. His passing in general has been very good, but this was an area that I hadn’t really considered.
Z-man, I think you once mentioned it before, but Wes Unseld-like. They would put the PG right across the line on the sideline, and once the pass was made the defense was scrambling. Unfortunately since I only saw the Knicks, I did not enjoy it.
You see, I agree here except I don’t think Cashman thought Soto would end up leaving. He legitimately believed that Soto would love playing in pinstripes so much he’d give the Yankees a discount like Cole and Judge did. Doing otherwise would mean operating in a way he’s never had to, like a middle-market GM who knows they are buying a rental. The fact that they upped their offer to an amount much higher than they paid Judge despite Hal Steinbrenner’s hemming and hawing about the Yankee’s payroll tells me he didn’t have a Plan B for this. And to be fair, how do you have a Plan B for a generational hitter whose OPS+ at 25 years old is higher than Joe DiMaggio’s was? You don’t.
Wow, Z-Man is catching major strays today.
Z-Man, I apologize for the rude behavior you’ve experienced here. You are a good man and shouldn’t have to suffer insult after insult because a few potty-mouthed malcontents cannot handle your sobering insights. I suppose that not every Yankees fan can be as insightful and classy as Hubert has been.
Hey, there’s no need to stoop this low, sir. These types of personal insults do not have a place in civilized discourse, Bernie. You crossed a line here.
Brett Kavanaugh’s beat friend in college was really good at quick outlet passes which ignited some movement. I remember it stood in contrast to Ewing, who was really slow with them (he’d corral it and hide it and shake everybody away from it then hand it to a guard). Duders understood the value of getting rid of it fast. Must have been his Yale education.
I suppose some factor other than Chris “The Dud” Dudley’s Ivy League education caused him to be so, so bad at free throws?
I missed you ras…
I hope all is well for you…
it’s all good in the world of sports entertainment…
I hope juan continues to excel…
saw something a college football coach posted in the team’s locker room…
it was their schedule, and each week he listed the Opponent as Themselves…
good shit right there…
dude in the video should worry more about what’s going in his mouth, rather than what’s coming out…
Totally agree Z-Man, I wasn’t aware of KAT’s outlet skills before he came here and I really love it.
Some of our best moments this year are born from his outlets passes, with OG or Josh speeding down the floor, I think it helps our “best offense in the multiuniverse” getting gaudy numbers a lot.
Meanwhile I watched yesterday’s Warriors-Wolves game and the old “corral the defensive rebound, keep the ball and then pound it slowly to the offensive side” is still Julius’ favorite toy, with the caveat that with Gobert around he’s getting a couple of DREB less…
It’s all good, ras.
“Brett Kavanaugh’s beat friend in college”
No comment.
And:
Transaction alert: Moses Brown to be waived by the Pacers, per
@MikeAScotto
Daigneault talking about how the Cup incentivizes playing starters at the end of games to run up the score, and the dangers therein.
“I just know what it feels like to be in the games, and you’ve got the angel and the devil on your shoulder. But we’re going with the angel. We’re going to go with player health.”
He’s the Anti-Thibs.
I am painfully aware of the closeness of the A and S keys, having sent out emails to parents and students about upcoming teats…
None is necessary. Everyone knows Chris Dudley was a total beatnik back at Yale. Shame all that psychedelic experimentation fucked with his ability to shoot free throws. Guy shot ’em like Mark Price before he fell in with Kav and Squee.
IMO no one should be worried about having a player that is underutilzed as a scorer. IMO you can’t have enough scoring talent. Injuries, matchups etc.. allow for those players to up their minutes/usage and for the team to win games it would otherwise lose if it was less talented.
IMO the only people worried about someone being underutlized are people that focus too much attention on the stat sheet and BPM instead of the talent on the team. It’s just plain silly, especially now because he’s not overpaid.
I couldn’t care less if he only averages 15 efficient PPG as long as he defends at a high level, makes some plays, moves the ball etc… If he’s not doing those things, that’s a different issue. But worrying about how many points he scores is just plain silly. We have 2 clearly better scoring options another one that’s also good and Josh Hart is playing out of his mind so far. We don’t need Mikal to be the Nets version. In fact, if he got his usage that high we’d probably be worse.
I’m no baseball expert, but based on salaries around the league for players at least in the conversation for MVP like Soto, it seems Soto is an overpay that only occurred because it was Cohen and the Yankees in a bidding war.
Baseball in not like basketball where one player can dramtically change the fortunes of a team. One player is going to have a much smaller impact in baseball. If the Yankees use what they offered Soto to get 2 high quality players and add a 3rd from a generally increased budget that they would have spent even if they landed Soto, they could wind up with 3 very good players and a better overall team than if they landed Soto.
I understand the Met’s happiness. Cohen is so rich he doesn’t care if he overpays and even loses money on the Mets. He’ll spend whatever it takes because he wants to win and he shits billions. But for the more mortal billionaires that still care about revenues, costs, profits, return on capital etc… not signing Soto to that contract was probably the right financial move and quite possibly even the right baseball move for them too.
As long as we are off topic, the world chess championship in progress is absolutely nutso so far!
https://x.com/AriA1exander/status/1866223928923783340?s=19
With Soto already in, the Mets turn their attention to Alex Bregman.
Not a huge surprise to me that they’d prefer Bregman to Pete.
Of all of these teams, I wonder which one has the resources to outbid the other?
Hey, geo! How’s it going, brother? I can’t complain. Things are alright these days. But, like everyone else, I’m day to day.
This was a perfect storm for Soto. He was in an OG spot but without the salary cap. Yankees needed to sign him to justify the trade and Cohen wanted to send a FU message to Hal and the rest of the MLS that a new George Steinbrenner that only cares about winning champoinships is now in town. Having the best agent and deal closer in the world helped too. Good for Soto and Congrats to him and his family.
Considering how small of an overall impact one bat in baseball has to winning and revenue generation, canyou imagine if NBA didn’t have a salary cap?
What would a Giannis AAV look like in 2025? – My guess is minimum double of what he’s making today. Maybe more…
NBA players are fools to go along with this salary cap nonsense. Owners are dying to recklessly over spend on salaries up and down teh food chain. Dolan would have easily dropped another $75M on the bench this season but the rules prevent him from doing so.
Love that, Geo. I’ve certainly been feeling the truth of it.
And Z-man, “upcoming teats” is hilarious (sadly, for you). No doubt that was fun to apologize for.
As for the Yanks, I agree with Strat – it would have been nice to keep Soto, but they have so many holes to fill it’s probably better to spend the money elsewhere. Whether Cashman can do that well is another story, but I’m not all that broken up about it. Severino was right that the offense was 2 players much of the year (with contributions at times from Stanton, Wells, and an occasional third). Very easy to exploit. Two more great players (Walker, Santander) and a pitcher (Tanner, Burnes), and a full year of Jazz and Jasson and they’ll be fine.
Just to be clear for the baseball people, I meant Scott, not Tanner. And Santander or Profar or Hernandez, any would depend on the contract. None are great defenders, but neither is Soto.
I think I’d honestly rather a 15-game losing streak than another day of Metsblogger. Cripes, this has been boring.
Anyone know if Towns is available tonight? Real WLotS potential here.
Strat, this SEEMS correct but really isn’t. A player like Soto is a no-brainer, you can’t miss with him. He can put up 6 WAR in his sleep. Last year he was worth 8 WAR. The Mets just added 8 WAR to their team, and it only cost them money, and they just got a LOT better.
The article about Soto on Fangraphs describes what I’m trying to say a lot better than I can describe it:
Soto was worth about $65 million last year in terms of dollar per production. It is possible for the Yankees to spend $50M on other players and recoup that $65 million in value? It’s certainly possible, I guess. But it is HARD AS HELL to do that. You’d need to sign two 4 WAR players for $25M each, or three-ish 3 WAR players at $18M each, and then there’s the small problem that each of those guys takes up a roster spot and a spot in the lineup.
It is very, very difficult to replace the kind of production that Soto gives you. The Yankees are a well run organization and will probably be contenders again. But it is DEFINITELY not as easy as “just sign a bunch of other guys with that money.”
Look at Soto’s wRC+, year by year, starting at age 19:
146, 143, 202, 164, 146, 154, 180.
His CAREER wRC+ is 169, which would have ranked fourth in baseball, behind only Judge, Ohtani, and himself. You have a massive leg up on the rest of the league if you have a hitter like that (who has also been incredibly durable) in your lineup.
I agree, this is a very boring blog. You should find another one. I have heard Posting and Toasting is much more fun.
But he’s not doing those things… he’s not even scoring 15ppg efficiently
Bullish article on RJ Barrett
Pags, according to Edwards III both KAT and Cam are GTD…
P.S. And now Bondy says they’re both available, hooray!
I’m not at all worried about his offense. His he has fairly consistent long term record for shooting 3s and is shooting below that so far this year or his TS% would be fine (just over 58%). I know what he is on offense. IMO any variance is role and noise.
Defense is another matter. That’s where I think there is some legitmate concern that he was never quite as good as his reputation or has begun slipping a bit, but even there I think he’s already showing signs of improving. He’s taking so much heat because we gave up so much for him and his defense was a key component of the deal given we have Towns/Brunson on the floor. Other than that, he’s playing fine.
I’ll just add one more thing that rarely gets brought up. Part of why he cost so much was that imo his contract is under market. Just as you have to give up a pick to move a bad contract you have give up a pick to get an attractive one.
Nah, the blog is great. It’s a big tent where even boring, shitty posters who constantly whine about opinions they don’t like are accepted.
That and the durability. He’s the Chipotle of NBA players. You know he’s gonna be there and the burrito will be acceptable.
More proof of how Cashman isn’t used to operating like a middle market team:
https://x.com/ChrisKirschner/status/1866270871360241669
He’s getting scooped left and right by the Dodgers and the Mets now because they have fatter wallets. Dude wanted to be in on Snell and lost out because all of his eggs were in the Soto basket. I don’t know if he’s built to be the GM for this new era of MLB baseball where the Yankees are a distant third in the richest team sweepstakes.