{"id":74937,"date":"2024-05-30T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=74937"},"modified":"2024-05-30T14:27:12","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T18:27:12","slug":"the-yankees-must-prioritize-juan-sotos-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/30\/the-yankees-must-prioritize-juan-sotos-extension\/","title":{"rendered":"The Yankees Must Prioritize Juan Soto&#8217;s Extension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The New York Yankees need to prioritize Juan Soto\u2019s contract extension due to the overall player and performance at hand.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The Yankees Must Prioritize Juan Soto&#8217;s Extension<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We\u2019re almost two full months through the Major League Baseball season, and pennant vibes are flowing through the air in the Bronx, New York. The team is on fire, and all the pistons are firing in symphony to secure victory. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/27\/yankees-new-historic-duo-judge-soto\/\" target=\"_self\">A key portion<\/a> of the Yankee engine is Juan Soto.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Hal Steinbrenner Weighs In On The Yankees Current Payroll<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the urge for a long-term Soto commitment settles in Yankee land, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/23\/yankees-owner-steinbrenner-payroll\/\" target=\"_self\">Hal Steinbrenner is causing anxiety<\/a> with the topic of money and the word \u201cunsustainable\u201d.\u00a0 The Yankees have surpassed the $300 million mark in payroll while possibly looking at a minimum of $500 million for a Soto signature.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Hal Steinbrenner on Yankees payroll and roster investment\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gHBO6xeV_f8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Steinbrenner\u2019s stance on the current Yankees&#8217; financial situation doesn\u2019t define the feasibility of signing Juan Soto, as they\u2019ve stated they can afford him. The real concern is the vacancies they need to account for in free agency.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Yankees have a Christmas list of players facing arbitration and free agency; these spots will also need to be prioritized. The cumulative number is between $35-$50 million which would be the minimum to restore the talent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Steinbrenner advises that such a payroll isn\u2019t needed to win a championship and that the funds are distributed between veterans, young talent, and the player development system.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Soto&#8217;s Performance<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Soto has been the right fit for the Yankees so far. Of all the free agent talks and transactions, this one is paying with interest.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To date, Soto leads five Major League statistical categories in the league. He has the most hits, highest on-base percentage, most games played, most total bases, and most plate appearances.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He\u2019s recorded 67 hits, 15 home runs, 46 RBIs, 125 total bases, and slashes a .312\/.408\/.581. Ranked as a top five hitter in the league. As well as scoring 40 times and driven in 46 runs; that&#8217;s 86 runs of involvement for Soto, out of the 269 runs scored by the Yankees.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Juan Soto Feature | Playing in NYC\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2VCW51E4fNY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><b>The Metrics And Statistics\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You don\u2019t exactly need stats and metrics to see how and why Soto is so successful. We\u2019ve seen this player profile for years, and we\u2019re now exposed to a more emphasized version of it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That being said, <a href=\"https:\/\/baseballsavant.mlb.com\/savant-player\/juan-soto-665742?stats=statcast-r-fielding-mlb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Statcast has Soto ranked second<\/a> of 263 hitters in the Major Leagues in their exit velocity and barrels leaderboard. He\u2019s maxed his distance of 473 feet and has hit 88 pitches clocked 95 mph and above.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His max exit velocity of 115.7 with an average of 95.3 mph. His raw power is consistent and he looks as confident as ever hitting in Yankee Stadium. Soto\u2019s numbers are so far better than last year and he\u2019s projected to keep up a substantial performance offensively for years to come.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>If The Yankees Don\u2019t Lock Up Soto, Someone Else Will\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Soto\u2019s stock is high right now and the demand is out the roof. There were various hitters on the market this past offseason. However, Soto is the name making the most noise and contributing to a winning club.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Yankees would regret losing the slugger-outfielder, especially to offensive-thirsty teams in the American League East.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: <em>Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Yankees need to prioritize Juan Soto\u2019s contract extension due to the overall player and performance at hand.\u00a0 The Yankees Must Prioritize Juan Soto&#8217;s Extension We\u2019re almost two full months through the Major League Baseball season, and pennant vibes are flowing through the air in the Bronx, New York. The team is on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5126,"featured_media":74955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2],"tags":[28263,2133,41],"class_list":["post-74937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-yankees","category-featured","tag-hal-steinbrenner","tag-juan-soto","tag-new-york-yankees"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}