Yankees' 2024 trade deadline failure should result in job losses after Juan Soto miss

The problem is not that the New York Yankees didn't pay $806 million for Juan Soto. The problem is that the New York Yankees did not go all out in 2024 when they had the luxurious one year of Soto, and likely stubbornly believed that the pinstripe experience would be enough to retain him in free agency.

In the end, the Yankees lost the Soto bidding at the 25th hour when Steve Cohen swooped in with a Godfather offer. This was something that was predicted as early as last year when the Yankees acquired Soto in a trade with the Padres. The Mets' intentions were telegraphed and still weren't taken seriously.

Brian Cashman said it himself: the Yankees leaned on the franchise's history and legacy playing a role in the Soto negotiations, only to find out Soto's main focus was money. Spoiler alert: every top free agent's focus is money. Nobody's taking a discount to deal with never-ending pressure while facing a unforgiving media.

Either way, if the Yankees had a feeling they were not going to be the highest bidder for Soto, the fact they did not empty out the coffers to surround him with the absolute best talent after realizing they needed further reinforcements in the middle of the summer is all the more incriminating.

New York took a gamble by parting with a lot of talent to import Soto for one guaranteed season. As the 2024 campaign wore on, it was clear the Yankees were among the favorites to win the World Series, but issues persisted. The lineup wasn't as strong as it could be; the bullpen was shaky; the depth was weak; they didn't really have a true No. 2 starter; their defense was objectively bad.

Knowing all of that, the Yankees went out and acquired Jazz Chisholm Jr. (good), Mark Leiter Jr. (bad) and Enyel De Los Santos (bad) at the trade deadline. That was it. That was the last legitimate opportunity to upgrade what they had.

Chisholm played the year out of position at third base; Leiter Jr. fell apart and didn't make the postseason roster until he was needed following injuries; and De Los Santos was designated for assignment before the end of August.

At the time, the Yankees were employing plenty of guys that could have (and should have) been replaced. For the sake of this argument, we'll focus on the offense. The first base position dealt with plenty of issues, and didn't log a home run from the end of July through the end of the year. Alex Verdugo was one of the worst qualified hitters in MLB and was never replaced. Gleyber Torres was awful until the middle of August. DJ LeMahieu was unplayable. Jahmai Jone was occupying a bench spot and doing absolutely nothing. At the very least, you have to find two solutions for all of those problems.

The Yankees opted for one, and that one was a non-factor in the playoffs (Chisholm). They didn't improve the defense, which doomed them in the World Series. They didn't improve the bullpen, which ended up being taxed because of the rotation's struggles. They didn't get another starter despite being in need of someone to eat more innings.

They essentially stood pat if you examine those moves and really analyze how they helped the roster. And they wasted that one year of Soto because the field was weak enough to run away with a championship. Remember, the Dodgers were dealing with an insane amount of injuries ahead of the trade deadline but decided to put matters into their owns hands by acquiring Jack Flaherty, Michael Kopech and James Paxton to weather the storm as they worked toward getting healthier.

We'd call this revisionist history, but just about every Yankees fan was outraged when the trade deadline passed and they saw what the roster was left with. We predicted this the entire way. And now we're here. Soto's gone. The Yankees roster remains incomplete. And the path forward is as unclear as it's ever been.