If there is a common property among baseball general managers operating in markets with several teams, it is to avoid making blockbuster stores with the devil.
In most cases, the devil is the team that would otherwise be considered a neighbor. Intimacy breeds contempt, they say, and for baseball GMS, which is too comfortable with a working relationship with the club closest to you can affect the perception.
So at the rare occasion that in urban or regional rivals do business, they are of a lower impact. The nightmare comes when the changes are made at a higher level.
The most disastrous of offers among rivals went down in baseballlore when Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $ 100,000 and additional benefits in 1919.
While Yankees reportedly placed a mortgage on Fenway Park, Ruth, as legend has it, puts a curse on Red Sox.
Offers of that size among rivals are dinosaurs. Los Angeles Angels would never have traded Shohei Ohtani to Los Angeles Dodgers, and Yankees really wouldn’t have sent Juan Soto to the New York Mets under any circumstances.
Nevertheless, each player still managed to orchestrate its own offers to get throughout the city as free agents.
So eager to join Dodgers and give himself a chance to a playoffs-not to mention a championship-Ohtani worked a deal of $ 700 million by agreeing to have $ 680 million of what was paid after the 10-year period .
The move not only allowed Ohtani to participate in a playoffs for the first time in his career, he played in 16 of them, five of whom were in the World Series. And when year 1 of a 10-year-old deal was finished, Dodgers had the trophy they longed for, and Ohtani had the ring he wanted.
A season later, the scenario has again appeared. While Soto has already experienced the World Series Glad 2019 with Washington Nationals and played in another last season with Yankees, his arrival was with Mets simple economy.
Soto signed a 15-year-old, $ 765 million agreement with Mets as opposed to Yankee’s best offer, which was reported in 16 years and $ 760 million. It amounts to a difference of $ 3.5 million per year.
Like Dodgers, last season, Mets is now on a championship guard. They went as far as the National League Championship Series last year, and Soto could be the driving force for Met’s first performance in the autumn classic since 2000. The World Series was against Yankees.
A Mets-Yankees World Series this season would continue that Surret started when Dodgers-Yankees Matchup last October got a couple of long-term MLB superpowers against each other.
Soto’s move to Queens needed no extra juice, but it still got it when the 26-year-old met a home run Saturday during his first spring bath in his new uniform. If Soto can take his game to an even higher level, which Ohtani did after signing his free agent contract, a summer awaits with not the mission power.
“Everyone knows who you are and everything, but they have to see it with their eyes,” Soto told reporters in Port St. Lucie after Saturday’s game.
Perhaps Soto’s strength is to know that for everything he has done at such a young age – with 201 home races and a career .953 Ops – he must continue to prove himself when playing for his fourth club for eight seasons.
“I try to bring the vibbs and the good energy wherever I go,” Soto said. “For me, whether I meet a Homer or not, that’s exactly how it looks, in the clubhouse and dugout. It’s all about. “
Last season, Dodgers rode a peak in the order that consisted of Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman all the way to a title. Mets, on Saturday, had Francisco Lindor Batting in front of Soto, which was followed by Pete Alonso.
So pull up a chair to see if 2025 can follow a similar road as 2024. Mets and Yankees meet May 16-18 in a three-game series in Bronx which will have all the eyes on it. The series finale has already been selected for national television.
A week later, Mets will be home for a three-game series against Dodgers. Again, the series finale has already been selected for national television. And almost a week later, Mets will be in Los Angeles in four against Dodgers.
And if it does not attract enough, the fourth July weekend will consist of three more matches against Yankees in Queens.
Fireworks are coming. Simply tune in.
