My father and grandfather bonded on very few things, but one was the Brooklyn Dodgers. My dad, while he embraced the Mets, remained a Dodger fan first and foremost until his last breath, despite the fact his team was now a country away from him, never missing a chance to go into a Tourette’s-ish rant about some “bonehead” move Walter Alston or Tommy Lasorda might make. Conversely, my grandfather fell into the category of an unforgiving disenfranchised fan who wholeheartedly embraced the Mets. For as long as health and geography would allow we’d regularly attend a Dodger-Mets game at Shea Stadium; our “three generations” outing an annual highlight. More often than not, no matter who had the better team at the time, the Mets would emerge victorious and poor Dad would fume uncontrollably while we both trolled him.
I truly wonder how they would have reacted to what the cost of doing business for these teams, let alone all of major league baseball, has escalated to. I’ve seen outpourings of consternation and lament from survivors from at least my dad’s generation all over my social media this morning in reaction to the stunning news that emerged with a puff of white smoke from the Winter Meetings in Dallas last night, as CBS SPORTS’ Mike Axisa, among others, reported:
Steve Cohen’s largesse was enough to lure Juan Soto to Queens. Soto is reportedly joining the New York Mets on a massive 15-year contract worth $765 million. For a Mets team that is starting to emerge as a league powerhouse, adding Soto is a significant move (duh)(.)
And as THE ATHLETIC’s prolific Ken Rosenthal wrote in a lengthier work, this had been telegraphed for years:
When the news first broke, some people thought Juan Soto was nuts.
Say no to $440 million over 15 years? Turn down a contract that, at the time, would have been the biggest in major-league history? And do this while still only 23?
Who did Soto think he was, anyway?
As it turned out, Soto knew exactly who he was. His decision to reject the Washington Nationals’ offer in the summer of 2022 led to him getting traded twice within 16 months, but those proved minor disruptions, speedbumps on his way to the Hall of Fame. On Sunday night, Soto got what he wanted all along – a landmark deal from a team hellbent on winning.
Cohen is a member of my generation, I dare say we’re kindred spirit who have loved this team since childhood. He just happens to have about $22 billion more than I do at his disposal, and he was absolutely resolute about winning this battle. In what turned out to be an epic showdown with his cross-town rival, who reportedly offered a mere $5 million less and an even lengthier commitment to keep the guy who was a crucial reason why their own 15-year World Series drought ended this fall, he offered up additional considerations. most notably a $75 million signing bonus and an escalator in year six, that makes the math for Soto–not to mention his uber-agent Scott Boras–all the more favorable. That’s what it takes these days to beat a Steinbrenner–and let’s not forget that at the beginning of this millennium they denied an overachieving wild card winner built much in the manner of last year’s “OMG” squad a world’s championship–a drought that has now reached 38 years.
Among the more frequent links being included in the posts of the ones who see the Soto signing as apocolyptic were ones to stories like the one from SPORTSNAUT’s Jason Burgos:
A new report from a top MLB insider suggests the New York Mets have little interest in bringing first baseman Pete Alonso back for 2025 and beyond.
For a lot of younger Mets fans, Pete Alonso is one of their favorite New York players of all time. The 30-year-old made a massive splash in his rookie season when he slugged a stunning 53 home runs in 2019. He earned All-Star honors that year and has done so three more times since, including in 2024.
However, despite it seeming like a no-brainer to make sure the homegrown star is locked into a new long-term deal, he and the organization have struggled to make up any ground on a potential contract. New team president David Stearns is big into stats and trends, and there is evidence that investing big in a slugging first baseman after age 30 is a risk.
I, for one, am not totally ruling out the possibility of Alonso coming aboard once again. If one uses the Dodgers as the benchmark for how to win in today’s game–and as current champions, finally on top of the baseball world three dozen years after their previous full-season title, they should be–they did not stop spending even after they locked in Shohei Ohtani. They dropped $325 million more on Yoshinubu Yamamoto, whose post-season heroics were integral to the Dodgers getting to the promised land as anything Shohei did in the regular season. Since the Mets appear hell bent on spending far less and making shorter-term commitments to pitchers, the possibility of snagging Alonso, even in a more diminished playing role over time, can’t be discounted. And I think Cohen has enough sechel to consider dangling a “C” on top of any cash offer he may make to Pete. If Soto is the closest parallel performance and money-wise to Alex Rodridguez we’ve seen in a generation, making Alonso the equivalent of Derek Jeter isn’t without precedence.
And if nothing else, this signing has given rise to the kind of whining and lamenting from the Bronx seldom seen relative to Queens, as exemplified by THE RECORD (of Bergen County)’s Pete Caldera that was filed earlier this morning:
Juan Soto is gone, goodbye – having agreed to a monstrous free-agent deal with the crosstown Mets, a huge victory for owner Steve Cohen and the fans at Citi Field.
In the Bronx, it’s time to dust off those Plan B scenarios.
For the pivoting Yankees, the winter work begins in earnest, trying to get back to the World Series and needing to rebuild a lineup now missing one of the most dynamic offensive forces in the game.
Soto, 26, is an irreplaceable player, but the Yankees are charged with filling a massive void in their lineup while also adding significant players to replace free agent infielders Gleyber Torres and Anthony Rizzo.
But the Yankees could fully turn their attention to free agents such as first baseman Christian Walker and third baseman Alex Bregman. First baseman Pete Alonso, a Tampa, Fla., native, is another slugging Boras free agent client and a career Met.
It’s that last line that’s especially tantalizing. What better way to extract revenge than to pull off your own cross-town pilfering? And with all due respect to the FOX Sports pundits who fear that a New York-New York post-season is the kiss of death, such a showdown with this kind of competitive overlay will undoubtedly play well even in the flyover states. Knife-fights with nine-figure valuations seem to transcend geographies.
Dad and Grandpa might not have been able to relate to that kind of an analogy. But younger fans–or those think like them (hand raised) certainly do. I personally know more than enough current Dodger fans that won’t be crying in their $30 beers or in their $22 boxes of glorified gas station sushi when the 2024 world championship banner is hoisted this coming spring. And if Soto can produce even one such flag for Citi Field, I would strongly suspect even the grumpiest of lamenters expressing their frustration and outrage today will eventually be more forgiving.
I know my dad actually stopped his rants in 1981 and 1988. Wherever he is now, I’m looking forward to quieting him again. Unless my grandfather already has.
Courage…