A Good Deal For Both Sides

While the baseball world still waits for Shohei Ohtani to sign, the biggest news that came out of the Winter Meetings was the Juan Soto trade.  As the Meetings were concluding, the Yankees and Padres finalized a deal sending Soto and Trent Grisham to the Bronx for five players--four pitchers and catcher Kyle Higashioka.  It's a trade that seemed inevitable and made so much sense for both teams, but it was so much more than that.  It's a trade where the Yankees finally started acting like the Yankees again.

In the past, when the Yankees wanted somebody, they made sure they got him.  Whether it was signing a free agent or making a trade, they usually got their guy.  It was George Steinbrenner's playbook.  Under his son, Hal, not so much.  Sure, they spent big on Gerrit Cole and did what they needed to do to keep Aaron Judge in pinstripes when it looked like he was headed to San Francisco.  But Hal is most definitely not his father.  For better or for worse, he's been much more reluctant to spend that kind of money.

That approach, however, hasn't been working.  And everyone knew it.  Most especially Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman knew it.  The team went 82-80 last season.  That's simply unacceptable to everyone in the organization.  So, they knew they needed to improve significantly.  And that they needed to make a big splash.  Trading for Juan Soto did just that.  Combine that with the trade for Alex Verdugo 24 hours earlier, and suddenly the Yankees had their swagger back.

This is what tends to happen every time the Yankees miss the playoffs.  They missed the playoffs in 2008, then signed CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira the following offseason.  The result was a World Series championship (their most recent) in 2009.  After the disaster that was 2023, Juan Soto was the priority.  And, just like in the winter of 2008-09, the Yankees got their man.

Most importantly, Soto and Verdugo are both left-handed hitters.  Yankee Stadium is a haven for left-handed hitters.  It always has been.  Yet, the Yankees had the second-fewest left-handed at-bats in the Majors last season.  That wasn't just a 2023 problem, either.  A team that plays its home games at Yankee Stadium wasn't just overwhelmingly right-handed.  Outside of Anthony Rizzo, it was almost exclusively right-handed for several years.

Left field has also been a multi-season problem.  They went into 2023 knowing that they needed to address left field yet did nothing about it.  Brian Cashman finally acknowledged both of those issues and took care of them in one fell swoop.  Was Cashman feeling the pressure?  Of course!  Did he know what needed to be done?  Absolutely!  But all it took was 24 hours to deal with two glaring needs (which is also a frustrating reality if you think about it).  And now he can move on to the pitching staff and the pursuit of Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Soto's a free agent after this season, so the Yankees may only be getting him for one year.  So what?  It was a move they had to make and they knew it.  If they only end up getting one year out of him, so be it.  Or, maybe playing in New York for a year will make him more likely to sign an extension next offseason.  Either way, the fact that this may essentially turn into a one-year rental was not enough to turn them off on a trade that was obviously so perfect.  Nor was the Padres' initial asking price.

San Diego was asking for a lot, knowing that nobody would meet their price.  Soto's a generational talent, but the Padres weren't getting seven or eight players for a guy somebody knew they might only have for one year, even a player of Soto's caliber.  However, they also knew that the Yankees were really the only team that could come anywhere close.  The Padres can't afford Soto.  That's why they had to trade him.  The Yankees can.  And the Yankees had enough prospects to make it work.  Like I said, it was almost too perfect.

Specifically, the Padres needed young, controllable pitching.  Their starting rotation is losing 600 innings, and their closer, Josh Hader, is also a free agent.  One thing the Yankees had is pitching prospects.  Most importantly, they had guys who can help San Diego in the Major Leagues this season. Michael King is one of them.  King was one of the Yankees' more valuable pitchers last season, and they had big plans for him in 2024.  For this reason, they were reluctant to include him in the trade.  But he's also a guy the Padres really wanted.  And, as much as you may like him, you're not letting Michael King prevent you from getting Juan Soto.

King wants to be a starter and figures to slide right into the Padres' rotation.  It's possible that Jhonny Brito and Randy Vasquez (who made his Major League debut against San Diego) will join him.  Or they'll be swing guys like they were for the Yankees.  And Drew Thorpe, who the Yankees also didn't want to include at first, is one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball.  He won't help the Padres in 2024, but he certainly can in 2025 and beyond.

Let's not forget about Kyle Higashioka, either.  The formerly longest-tenured Yankee comes over with all of these pitchers he's been working with and will be a veteran complement to Luis Campusano, who the Padres love, but also don't think is ready to be an everyday catcher.  That's five players, four of whom can help them in the Major Leagues in 2024, and salary relief!  Not a bad haul for a guy they weren't gonna be able to keep anyway!

For the Padres, the best part is that they'll now be able to do other things.  They plan on being competitive in the NL West and still have long-term commitments to Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., Xander Bogaerts and Yu Darvish.  Now that they don't have to pay Soto, they've freed up that money to make other moves to improve their team.  And this certainly won't be the last thing they do this offseason!  Even with the guys they got for Soto, they still need at least one more starting pitcher.  (It also seems likely that Jake Cronenworth will be traded, which, frankly, is crazy to me.)

Bringing this back to the Yankees, though, this is the type of move that they made in the past.  It's the in your face, we're doing it because we're the Yankees and we can type of signing that makes other teams and their fans hate them.  The difference here, however, is that they didn't just go for Soto to say they got Soto.  They went after Soto because he filled a glaring need and is an absolutely perfect fit for Yankee Stadium.

Even though Soto going to the Yankees seemed like the inevitable conclusion, it was still important for to get it done before Ohtani signed.  The Yankees were never in the mix for Ohtani, so they had to make sure they got Soto while they were the only real trade partner.  Once Ohtani signs, all of the losers in that sweepstakes will suddenly have the money earmarked for Ohtani available...and might've wanted to spend it on a year of Soto.  Now they can't.  The Yankees made sure of it.

And suddenly, people are talking about the New York Yankees like the New York Yankees again.  A team that went an incredibly disappointing 82-80 in 2023 got its groove back.  At the very least, it got back its swagger.  Which is something that's definitely been missing at Yankee Stadium more often than not recently (especially last season).  And in doing so, they completely changed the perception of the team heading into 2024.

The Yankees think the 2023 season was an aberration.  But it also exposed flaws that needed to be addressed.  And there's no doubt that the Yankees' roster is much better today than it was at the beginning of the week.  What a difference a couple of trades can make!