This offseason, New York Yankees fans learned the hard truth about just how much money matters to Juan Soto — or, rather, they learned that an owner willing to cave to whatever height it took to satisfy him was more important to his family than the legacy of the pinstripes.
It sounds almost embarrassing to type now, but ... when Soto hit free agency, his relationship with Aaron Judge felt meaningful. The ability to follow up an AL championship season by seamlessly slotting into a legendary club's legacy felt meaningful. His relationship with the fans felt meaningful! But none of it mattered as much as Steve Cohen tacking on suites, bonuses, and essentially waving the white flag on any attempt to meet in the middle. The Mets gave Soto and his family anything they ever wanted, and despite a margin between the two reported offers that hardly seemed like a gulf on the surface, the team in Flushing won out.
In case it wasn't already obvious what motivated Soto to switch boroughs, the superstar slugger said the quiet part out loud again this week, and infuriated Mets fans in the process.
While discussing his All-Star snub, Soto noted that he would have loved to have made the team, seeing there was a "lot of money on the table" for him if he'd been selected. Yes, sure, we get it, but maybe save that for after the cameras have stopped rolling?
Juan Soto was asked if he would have liked to have made the All-Star team:
"What do you think? I think it's a lot of money on the table if I make it"
Juan Soto of the New York Mets is only interested in going to the All-Star Game for the money. Yankees fans could've told you that!
The Soto issue was done and dusted months ago in the Bronx — or, at least, it reached a sense of finality when Yankee fans got to rebuke their former icon during the initial Subway Series. That three-game set seemed to leave Soto uniquely rattled, causing a long-enough slump to throw off his otherwise ironclad All-Star case. The slugger recovered and won Player of the Month in June, but clearly, the stench was already too powerful for his peers.
It's a tiny bit of solace that Yankees fans making their feelings known probably helped contribute to costing Soto this extra little chunk of All-Star money. They can't break him, necessarily, but at least they taxed him after he put on a show for a year of their lives, then turned off the charm on a dime.
