Welcome to Snyder’s Soapbox! Here, I pontificate about matters related to Major League Baseball on a weekly basis. Some of the topics will be pressing matters, some might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and most will be somewhere in between. The good thing about this website is that it’s free, and you are allowed to click away. If you stay, you’ll get smarter, though. That’s a money-back guarantee. Let’s get to it.
I’m generally always game to talk about owners in Major League Baseball, but it’s actually been a topic that has made the rounds a little bit lately. That means it’s an easy time to discuss many of my thoughts and feelings while the bootlicking brigade is free to tell me how business-unsavvy I am and how little I understand about economics. It’s a win-win, really.
The Soto sentiment
I recently saw a Yankees fan on social media say that he didn’t want the Yankees to re-sign Juan Soto because it would cost too much. Now, I’m not suggesting he is a representative of a majority of Yankees fans or anything, but I also wouldn’t focus on just one random fan. This is a common refrain in any fan base and it’s just so unbelievably maddening.
Soto is about to finish in the top six of MVP voting for the fourth time and he hasn’t even turned 26 years old. He’s already won a World Series ring and he was one of the most important players on that team … at age 20. He’s having a career year this season and there’s no reason to believe he’ll age poorly with his skill set at the plate.
And for the love of all that is holy, do you have any idea how much money baseball teams have? Forbes currently lists Hal Steinbrenner’s net worth at $1.5 billion. The Yankees are worth an estimated $7.1 billion. Why in the world would you be worried about a player getting too much money from an owner in a league with no salary cap?
I know the standard answer to that question and it’s that it might prevent ownership from spending down the line. This isn’t a reason to hope that your favorite team avoids signing Juan Freaking Soto. It’s a reason to bring a torches-and-pitchforks crowd at ownership for not spending more to supplement the team in the future, should all of this come to pass.
The Yankees can absolutely afford re-signing Soto without it handcuffing any future spending at all. If they don’t, they should be publicly shamed by fans and media alike. The only reason they’d avoid going huge would be that the Steinbrenner family now worries more about the bottom line than winning. And let’s be clear about what that means. It doesn’t mean they have to go into the red in order to sign Soto and win. It just means they might make less of a profit. Oh the horror!
You really are not obligated to worry about protecting the profits of billionaires.
Castellanos’ feelings
Recently, Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos said he’d like to see