McMonigle: Mets arriving at head table doesn't mean demise of the Yankees
Chris McMonigle, as he declared Monday morning as well, reiterated on Tuesday that the Mets have arrived at the big table with the likes of the Dodgers and Yankees as a premier franchise that will be in on every free agent star as long as Steve Cohen is at the helm.
"This was the New York Mets no longer being the little brother in this town," C-Mac said. "Not just here, but across all of Major League Baseball…The Mets will be in the conversation for every big free agent."
But C-Mac pushed back strongly on the idea that with the Mets rise comes the Yankees fall, as if losing Juan Soto to their crosstown rivals means that the Bombers are no longer the Evil Empire that they were famously coined 20 years ago. Sure, C-Mac would have liked to have seen the Yanks offer more money to Soto, but that doesn't mean their identity as a big spender who will take interest in any available star has suddenly wilted away.
"What it was not, however, was the demise of the New York Yankees," C-Mac said. "One day in, as disappointed as I am…the idea that this is the demise of the New York Yankees - one player - this isn't Aaron Judge or Bernie Williams, a player who has been here forever and established something with this team and left. He was here for one season. It was a player they wanted and played in their uniform and took them to the World Series, and he chose not to stay. I don't think it is some sort of terrible indictment on who the Yankees are.
"Juan Soto didn't care about being a Yankee. I don't think he didn't want to be a Yankee, I just don't think it impacted him…he wanted this free agency…but the idea that this is somehow a paradigm shift of what the Yankees are, no no no."
Sure, losing Soto hurts a lot, especially to a team in their own city, but that doesn't mean that the Yankees have suddenly swapped places with the Mets and become the little brother in New York. It simply means that there are now two premier teams in Gotham.
"This is not the end of the New York Yankees," C-Mac said. "Plan B sucks, but do you know what Plan B is gonna get them in a wide-open American League? One of the best teams, if not the best team, in the American League. It's not Juan Soto, but that's what the Yankees do."
