The New York Yankees didn’t re-sign Juan Soto, but still had to spend part of the MLB winter meetings talking about the newest member of the New York Mets.
One interesting wrinkle that emerged from the postmortem of the Yankees’ attempt to re-sign Soto was the issue of stadium suites, and whether a player should pay for them. According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, one thing that distinguished the Mets’ offer was a free suite at Citi Field.
The Yankees declined to offer the same in their own stadium, citing a precedent of past greats paying for suites:
“The Yankees shouldn’t be faulted for offering a whopping $760 million, but they wouldn’t budge on the suite. The Yankees felt they couldn’t give Soto a suite then [Aaron] Judge pays for his suite, and even Derek Jeter paid. They were willing to give a discount on a suite, but not change their precedent.
“[Mets owner Steve] Cohen didn’t think much about the suite. When he sets his eyes on a prize, he is extremely focused.”
When given a chance to respond on Wednesday, Cashman stuck to his guns, via NJ.com:
“Some high-end players who make a lot of money for us, if they want suites, they buy them,” Cashman said.
He went through the Yankees’ process of providing stadium seats to wives and family members, adding that a suite is also available due to weather and other factors.
“If they ever want to be upstairs, they have the choice to be downstairs or upstairs and be protected and enjoy it,” Cashman explained. “We have set up a great family room with a babysitter. It’s a great, safe setup to take care of families and things like that. But obviously, if we have a squad with a lot of great players and high-end players, we went through a process in previous negotiations where this could have happened, and this is what we did. We are going to honor that. So I don’t regret that.”
It feels easy to berate or mock the Yankees for potentially giving the Mets the upper hand in their pursuit of Soto, but this also seems like Homer Simpson looking for a peanut.
Soto wanted a suite in his home stadium. The Mets were willing to give him big money and the suite for free. The Yankees were willing to give him a lot of money and the opportunity to buy a suite. If the suite was that important to Soto, he could have asked for more money from the Yankees and bought a suite, because money can be exchanged for goods and services and Soto was once again about to get a lot of money.
Ultimately, the Mets’ compensation offer was worth a sum of money well in excess of $765 million, thanks to perks like salary escalators, an opt-out and perks including, yes, the suite. The Yankees tried to beat that value without the added value of a free suite and are apparently comfortable with that decision because there really shouldn’t be much functional difference between, say, $760 million and no suite and $755 million and a free suite ($5 million is an estimate of how much a suite will cost a player over 15 years).
The question was never How Soto wanted to receive his total compensation from the Yankees. This is all a very small part of a complicated process, and the suite is probably more relevant as a reflection of Cohen’s commitment to landing one of the best free agents in recent memory.
