For me, there couldn’t have been a better place to be except the outfield of Navy Yard Park on a beautiful, 77 degree day in DC as the Nationals took on the Phillies. My favorite city with my family, watching my favorite sport. And while most of my family had been happy to watch the Phillies, I was more excited to watch the Nationals, who had rising slugger Juan Soto. He ended up going 2-3 that game, and almost led the Nats back with a double and later, scoring. I remember the hype around Soto that season, where he hit .313 with a crazy .554 OBP. And if you told me that I would have to take the 4 train to 161st to see the “Childish Bambino” instead of the Green line in DC, I would’ve called you crazy.
25-year-old Soto is notorious for his fantastic hitting on the diamond, posting a crazy career average of .294. What’s even crazier is his OPS, which combines how well you hit to how often you get on base. Juan is posting an average of .946. To put this into perspective, a great player in the MLB posts about a .700, and Soto hasn’t put up anything lower than .770 his entire career. Not only is this good for him, as he is projected to get a 500 million dollar contract in free agency, but he is also a massive asset to the Yankees, as he has the boost of hitting the Bronx Bombers need.
The Yankees were one of the worst offensive teams in the MLB averaging 29th, or second to last, in offensive production. This includes the categories of OPS, OBP, total average, and slugging. The Yankees also did this while paying 150 million dollars more than the team below them, which is of course the Oakland A’s. And while the Yankees have a fantastic farm system which is finally bringing up future stars and great base hit getters like Oswald Pereza, Jasson Dominguez and current shortstop Anthony Volpe, we saw when Judge got injured that the power hitters like Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rizzo couldn’t produce. Soto couldn’t be a more perfect piece to this issue the Yankees have, and fits right into the puzzle as a left handed power hitter at the 314 right field short porch at Yankee Stadium.
After many calls and cries by fans, it looks to be that Brian Cashman finally woke up. The Yankees already have signed Volpe, Judge and Cole to long term deals, and between Japanese star Yoshibu Yamamoto looking to sign a long term deal and Soto telling a reporter who asked if he wants to sign with the Yankees long term “They know who to call”, it seem that if everything can just fall into place, the Yanks might be closer to 28 than what was expected after a grisly and grim 2023 campaign.
