Getting Soto Is Huge! But We Need More!

I love that the Yankees got Juan Soto this off-season. It was a big step forward in what was a gross 2023 season.  We just couldn’t get our team going in 2023.  

I’m worried as a fan.  We got Juan Soto and we have a few other parts that are important to this team, but we need more. Yoshinobu Yamamoto would have been amazing, but the Yankees were right to not go too high for him. Let the Dodgers do that, it’s fine with me.  But seriously, what happens next with the Yankees? What big name either free agency or trade are we going after?  Like I said on Twitter just a short time ago, “don’t look now, but the Yankees have only made 1 legit move this off season, hardly a fix for what was a terrible 2023 season.“

This take of course is not popular to some. In fact, if you’re not a Yankee fan from the 70′s and just became a Yankee fan in the late 1990′s, you really don’t have a gauge for what the Yankees are all about.  The Yankees are a storied franchise, but that franchise had a lot of great times and bad times way before 1996.  Old guys like us understand the ups and downs and I have news for you, we can get pretty annoyed by it.  But newbies don’t get that.  They just think I’m the old guy yelling at a cloud. 

Whatever.  Live a little, that’s all I’m gonna say. Crack open an encyclopedia. Read history. Understand the Yankee ownership, the former managers before Joe Torre… the Bronx when things were bad, when guys like Mantle roamed the outfield. When players like Ron Guidry dominated.  For many of you it’s all folklore… but trust me, it was all real and the Yankees were very, very good.  And why? Well, because we had decent ownership with a solid front office and for a while there was a guy named George Steinbrenner who wanted perfection out of his players and managers. And while perfection and baseball aren’t really a thing, it was nice to know that George held his players and managers at a high standard.  The point was, “at least try to attain it.”  

And so, these days, do I like the state of the Yankees? Not really. Have we improved? I love Juan Soto, but I wonder what happens after this season.  Can we keep the guy?  And much like it was last off season when the Yankees got Carlos Rodon and we were still “not done”, we were actually done and Rodon gave us nothing in 2023 but heartburn.

And so, if you are curious as to why I’m so annoyed? It’s because the standards have changed when it comes to the Yankees.  We’re not a superpower anymore. The Yankees are just like the other teams.  We’re not strong, we’re OK.  So pardon me for being cranky and wanting to get the pieces we need to win.  

Look, Bleeding Yankee Blue was started in 2010 because I was angry at the Yankees and how they mismanaged their team and I hated to watch us lose year after year.  And since 2010, they have not won a championship.  It’s 2023, about to be 2024.  That’s terrible. We are better than that, or so I thought.  

And so, you ask me why I’m cranky… why I “post controversial stuff”.  

Controversial?  Huh?  How about frustration? That’s the word! Using the word Controversial is a word the new soft generation uses.  

Next thing you know people on Twitter are “triggered” because I said the word “shit” or something.  

How about as Yankee fans we can all agree on this; The Yankees were not good in 2023… and we need get better in 2024.  Signing only Juan Soto and a few spare parts is NOT the answer.  That’s an opinion and in my mind, a fact.  

We need to improve.  That’s the bottom line.