"Phillies have Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwaber" - MLB insider presents 4 reasons Juan Soto to Philadelphia makes sense
Juan Soto's free agency has got many predicting his next potential destination. Given what he merits, there are only a handful of teams in the majors who could give him the kind of money he wants, which is signing a deal closer to what Shohei Ohtani signed (10 years, $700 million) with the LA Dodgers last year.
Among teams who could dish out such paychecks are the New York Yankees, Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and the Dodgers. MLB insider Robert Murray discussed Soto's free agency on The Baseball Insiders podcast with Adam Weinrib.
While Murray shared reasons for each team joining Soto's sweepstakes, he felt the Phillies have all the right ingredients right from players, coaching and owners to sign him.
"The Phillies would make a lot of sense for Soto, and for the reasons I mentioned," Murray said (6:19 onwards). "When you look at the roster, you have players like Trea Turner, Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber. Then there’s the coaching staff, with Kevin Long as the hitting coach. It just makes so much sense to have Soto on that roster.
"You also have an owner in John Middleton who’s willing to spend and a president of baseball operations in Dave Dombrowski, who loves star players. All the ingredients are there. Nobody was mentioning them before, but now they’re finally involved. We’ll see exactly how serious they are, but I think it makes a ton of sense."
However, Robert Murray also said since Juan Soto's agent is Scott Boras, the agent will drive the price up in the coming days.
"And when you look at the landscape, you have the Mets, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, Phillies—and I might be forgetting one—but all those teams are big spenders. This is Boris’s paradise right here because all those big spenders being in the mix will only drive the price up more and more," Murray added.
Joining Phillies should feel homecoming to Juan Soto, given he will have his former teammates like Bryce Harper and Trea Turner playing there.
Juan Soto had "good meeting" with Yankees owner and other executives, says Hal Steinbrenner
One of the reasons why Yankees emerged ALCS champions this season was Juan Soto. The outfielder had a career high season in many categories, including 41 home runs and .569 slugging percentage apart from a .288 batting average and 109 RBIs.
On Monday, Soto met Yankees front office executives in California. According to Sports Illustrated, he spoke with chairman and managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner, team president Randy Levine, general manager Brian Cashman, manager Aaron Boone and senior adviser Omar Minaya.
Steinbrenner said that it was "a good meeting" with "very honest back-and-forth dialogue," between both parties.
"Our fans really enjoyed having him in New York," Steinbrenner said, via ESPN's Jorge Castillo.
"He's definitely a significant part of why we got to the World Series. I've got ears. I know what's expected of me. So, look, it's been a priority. We wouldn't have gone out to the West Coast if it wasn't."
It's expected to be the first of many meetings, as there's no drought in teams and numbers on contract when it comes to Juan Soto's free agency.