After deals on Wednesday, Juan Soto is headed to the New York Yankees in their first big move following the team’s worst season in three decades.
They hope at least one more will follow.
New York acquired Soto and Gold Glove center fielder Trent Grisham in a blockbuster trade with the cost-cutting Padres.
Photo: AP
San Diego received right-handed pitchers Michael King, Jhony Brito, Randy Vasquez and Drew Thorpe along with catcher Kyle Higashioka.
It was the second monster deal involving the 25-year-old Soto in less than two years. The three-time All-Star slugger has one season of team control left and is likely to get a salary of about US$32 million after batting .275 with 35 homers, 109 RBIs and a .930 OPS in his only full season with the Padres.
San Diego obtained Soto from Washington on Aug. 2 last year after he turned down a US$440 million, 15-year offer from the Washington Nationals.
Padres general manager A.J. Preller said that his team needed pitching and the swap gives San Diego young arms who will be with the franchise for several years.
“It’s very difficult to make a deal where we’re trading a player the caliber of Juan Soto, but if we did that we wanted to make sure we shored up a bunch of needs. We were able to get some depth, with quality,” Preller said at a late-night news conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where the MLB’s winter meetings were wrapping up.
New York went 82-80 last season, narrowly avoiding their first losing record since 1992, and finished 29th among the 30 major-league teams in batting average.
Soto joins a Yankees outfield that projects to have fellow All-Star Aaron Judge in center and newly acquired Alex Verdugo in the other corner.
Soto has a 1.274 OPS in nine career games in the Bronx.
“Soto and Judge are Gotham’s new dynamic duo,” agent Scott Boras said.
Yankees executives on Monday are to travel to California to meet with free agent Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a person familiar with the planning told reporters on condition of anonymity because details were not announced.
The 25-year-old right-hander was 16-6 with a 1.21 ERA this season for the Orix Buffaloes of Japan’s Pacific League.
Soto, like Verdugo, adds a left-handed bat to a lineup that was righty heavy for several seasons.
Yankees lefties had 55 homers and 171 RBIs last year, while righties had 164 homers and 479 RBIs, an imbalance for a team that usually takes advantage of Yankee Stadium’s short porch in right.
“They were aggressive,” Preller said. “They had a need and Juan is an incredible player and fit the need really well. When you have two teams that line up, and you have a team that’s calling you consistently, you usually get a feel that this is something that has a chance to happen and hopefully it’s a deal that works out for both sides.”
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS