About the Mets signing Juan Soto for $765 million from here to eternity — or 15 years, whichever comes first, a few observations:
1) Memo to: Yankee fans. Subject: Pilferage, or the lack thereof. Dear Yankee fans: Sit down and shut up. Nobody "stole" a damn thing from you. Your senses of entitlement, which should have dissipated long enough ago (the end of the 20th century comes to mind immediately), have sent you into the kind of mental habits that would get fans of most organisations urged to visit the neareat psychoanalysts, do not pass Go, do not collect $200,000.
(This is my essay, and unlike the actual game of Monopoly I adjust for inflation. Hell, I'm thinking of buying my game some choice, high currency sheets of those classic Hunky Dory Smackers — the play money bills with "That Ain't Hay" inscribed above the central image of a hay wagon. And raising all the dollar amounts accordingly. This should make for some hum-dinging pots for whomever lands on Free Parking.)
2) Memo to: Everyone else who's been carping, harping, and thundering that nobody's worth that stupid a vault of money, never mind a Soto. Baseball Reference shows his most similar batters through age 25 are a bunch of unworthies named Bryce Harper, Frank Robinson, Ken Griffey, Jr., Mike Trout, Eddie Mathews, Miguel Cabrera, and Mickey Mantle. That's four bona-fide Hall of Famers and three who'll be elected in due course.
Aside from which, it's the Mets' money. Steve Cohen and his wife and partner Alex can spend their money any way they see fit. If they're willing to spend $765 million, let them. If they're willing to withstand the eventual consequences, let them. If they're that willing to spend the equivalent of a solid pitching staff on a single outfielder — never mind one with Soto's past performance papers and likely decade ahead — let them.
Without Soto, the Mets got as far as last year's National League Championship Series. With him, they might get as far as the World Series. They might even win it. More than one Series? Just get the first one. Then start praying.
3) Beware, however. The Cohens may not be the capricious types Nelson Doubleday and Fred Wilpon were, dismantling the 1986 Mets little by little within four or five years, reducing a should-have been dynasty to the memory of one championship season with an apparent tension between the team's randiest factions and its cleaner-living ones. But they're only human, too. There's always a chance that hitting the World Series height could be followed by unforeseen disaster.
The current postseason construction leaves too much room for such disaster. (Among other flaws.) Especially if your team might be lacking other elements that make the difference. The Mets will need the long-term pitching ensure as best as possible that the other guys don't out-hit and out-score them. Unless you think Soto himself can score ten runs to the opposition's nine all by himself.
4) Soto's only 26. He might actually make the lion's share of this deal worth it. But, then, there are laws of unforeseen circumstances at play. Remember Griffey. Once he landed in Cincinnati, the injury bug overtook him. He wasn't half the player he'd been in Seattle. He still managed to post a serious Hall of Fame career. Managed.
Remember Albert Pujols. He was even sadder. He left St. Louis for riches in southern California. After his first above-average season as an Angel, numerous foot and leg troubles reduced him to designated hitting. When the Angels traded him to the Dodgers midway though his next to last season, it was as much a mercy trade for him as it was relief for them. (And it wasn't Pujols's fault, any more than it's Trout's fault, that the Angels are governed by an owner to whom marketing overrides all else — including baseball smarts that build winning teams to market, teams that cohere rather than pray the newest Big Names survive.)
We're going to find out just how smart the Cohens are. We're also going to find out whether they have the stomach to withstand a Soto whose final decade of this new deal will measure up equal to the final 10 seasons of the aforementioned Hall of Famers. If they do, it means Soto doesn't cost himself Cooperstown but, as others have noted, even the Cohens — who aren't normally shy about spending big for what they want — might not be thrilled that they're paying about $510 million guaranteed for an average of 13.7 home runs a season. (Or, $3.642 million per home run.)
5) Don't count your World Series rings before they've been struck, Mets fans. Soto may give you plenty at the plate for a very long time. But the team around him is another issue altogether. And it only begins with whether or not Pete Alonso remains in the Mets' immediate future.
6) One more time: Shut up, Yankee fans. You wuzn't robbed.
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