Yankees proprietor Hal Steinbrenner is scheduled to fly to Southern California for an in-person assembly with Juan Soto and agent Scott Boras, report Mark W. Sanchez and Jon Heyman of the New York Put up. The Put up stories that the sit-down will happen in a couple of week a half — a couple of days after Boras and Soto welcome Mets proprietor Steve Cohen.
Boras steered at this week’s GM Conferences that Soto plans to fulfill with the possession group of each workforce that’s pursuing him. That made it an inevitability that he’d sit down with every of Cohen and Steinbrenner. The Yankees and Mets are the 2 most blatant suitors for the market’s prime free agent.
Loads of groups would like to convey Soto into the fold. Heyman reported final week that no less than 11 groups had reached out to Boras to specific curiosity — the Giants, Dodgers, Blue Jays and Purple Sox amongst them. Nonetheless, there’s hypothesis all through the business that Soto is likeliest to land with one of many New York groups. Boras has publicly acknowledged that Soto is prepared to signal anyplace. Saying in any other case wouldn’t do his market any favors, in fact.
Phillies proprietor John Middleton opined immediately that the bidding could come right down to the Yankees and Mets. “I’m afraid Juan Soto desires to be in New York, and I don’t thoughts being a stalking horse,” Middleton informed Conor Smith of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “In some unspecified time in the future, if [president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski] and I get that feeling, we’ll most likely say, ‘ what, we’re not going to win this’ as a result of we’ve each been the stalking horse earlier than. And if I had been an agent, I’d do it too. It’s completely good technique. I imply, it’s good. However on the finish of the day, I simply suppose he likes New York.“