If there is one general characteristic between a baseball general manager operating in a market with multiple teams, it is to avoid making a big-hit deal with the devil.
In most cases, the demon is a team that would otherwise be considered a neighbor. Intimacy creates light empty and for baseball GMs, making your working relationship too comfortable with the club closest to you can affect your perception.
Therefore, in rare opportunities for town and local rivals to make a deal, they are shocking diversity. Nightmares occur when swaps are created at a higher level.
The most disastrous deal among rivals fell in baseball lore when the Boston Red Sox sold the Bay Blues to the New York Yankees in 1919 with $100,000 and an additional perk.
The Yankees reportedly placed a mortgage at Fenway Park in Ruth, as legend says, but placed a curse on the Red Sox.
A trade of that scale among rivals is dinosaurs. The Los Angeles Angels would not trade Shohai Otani for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Yankees would certainly not have shipped Juan Soto to the New York Mets under any circumstances.
However, each player was able to coordinate their deals to cross town as free agents.
I want to join the Dodgers and give them a chance to make the playoffs appear rather than mentioning the championship. Otani made a $700 million deal by agreeing to pay $680 million after his 10-year term ended.
The move not only allowed Otani to participate in the playoff game for the first time in his career, but he also played in 16 of them. Five of them were the World Series. And when the first year of the 10-year contract was completed, the Dodgers had the trophy they had longed for, and Otani had the ring he wanted.
A season later, the scenario resurfaced. Soto had already experienced World Series glory with the Washington Nationals in 2019, playing another season with the Yankees last season, but his arrival with the Mets was simple economics.
Soto has signed a 15-year, $765 million contract with the Mets, in contrast to the Yankees’ best offers. 2016 and $760 million. This amounts to a difference of $3.5 million a year.
Just like the Dodgers were last season, the Mets are now appearing in Championship Watch. They went up to last year’s National League Championship Series. Soto could be the driving force behind the Mets’ first appearance in the fall classic since 2000. That World Series was against the Yankees.
This season’s Mets Yankees World Series began when the Dodgers Yankees matchup in October pitted each other on the longtime MLB superpowers.
Soto’s move to Queens didn’t require any extra juice, but it got it anyway when the 26-year-old hit a home run on Saturday in his first spring at-bat in his new uniform. As Soto did after he signed his game to his free agent contract, if he could take his game to an even higher level, then a summer of Miss’ star power awaits.
“Everyone knows who you are and everything, but they have to see it with their eyes.” Soto told reporters in Port St. Lucie after Saturday’s game.
Perhaps Soto’s strength proved himself while playing for the fourth club in eight seasons, with everything he did at such a young age: 201 home runs and .953 OPS. It’s about knowing you need to keep doing it.
“I try to bring in a vibe and a good energy wherever I go,” Soto said. “To me, if I hit Homer or not, it’s what it looks like in the clubhouse and the dugout. That’s all.”
Last season, the Dodgers rode the top of the order consisting of Otani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. The Mets batted Francisco Lindor in front of Soto on Saturday, followed by Pete Alonso.
So, pull up the chair and see if 2025 can follow a similar path to 2024. The Mets and Yankees will meet May 16-18 in the Bronx three-game series. The series’ finale has already been selected for national television.
A week later, the Mets will be at home in a three-game series with the Dodgers. Again, the series finale has already been selected for national television. And just a week later, the Mets are in Los Angeles for the four of them against the Dodgers.
And if it’s not attractive enough, the July 4th weekend will consist of three more games against the Queen’s Yankees.
Fireworks are coming. Simply adjust.
