Yankees' latest free agent meeting is most telling hint yet about Juan Soto plans

Throughout the Juan Soto process, you've heard numerous talking heads tout the value of the Yankees "spreading their money around" rather than enter a big-wig contest with Steve Cohen. This is mostly because the baseball world at large would prefer Soto not stay with the Yankees.

Still, in recent days, while trusted internal Yankees voices like Jack Curry have placed Soto ahead of any Plan B on the pecking order, external chatter has definitely begun to shift into "multiple eggs for the price of one giant egg" mode.

At first, the Yankees' pivot was largely tied to a 90-minute Zoom call with Max Fried (with another on the horizon!), as well as a rumored big bid for Willy Adames if Soto's talks went south. Both of these rumors felt like posturing; Fried and Adames share an agency at CAA. Neither is represented by Scott Boras. Therefore, interest on the Yankees' end could easily be interpreted as a message to Boras: get your ducks in a row, stop messing around, and give us the Soto number. Otherwise, we're heading to these guys.

But one Yankees meeting seemed to mean more than the others this week. Initially, the Yankees' contact with ace righty Corbin Burnes was purported to have taken place in November. That may have been true, but Mike Puma's sources indicate that the two sides also met this week.

It could be all due diligence, but a pair of meetings (?) with Burnes, including one very recently, brings a different flavor to the proceedings. After all, Burnes is represented by ... Scott Boras. If the Yankees are doubling down on discussions with him, that could certainly hint that the Soto bidding is spiraling towards a place they're uncomfortable with.

Yankees' pair of Corbin Burnes meetings hints Juan Soto could land elsewhere

Now, they could also just be covering their bases. After all, the Blue Jays are thought to have the most aggressive current bid for Soto and they, too, purportedly had a meeting with Burnes this week. The Yankees' contact with the righty was virtual, but Toronto met with him in person.

The Jays are thought to be a longshot for Soto, but recent rumors content that they'll eventually end up in the upper stratosphere alongside the Mets, numerically.

Maybe the Yankees and Jays are simply taking care of side business while they discuss Soto. Maybe the Yankees plan to be more aggressive in the market than we thought, looking to pair Soto with a top flamethrower. But all of this felt like leverage leaks until a second Boras client became intertwined in the mess. Now, it's hard to ignore the possibility that the Yankees are covering their bases for an unsavory Soto deal elsewhere.

Willy Adames would look good in pinstripes, in a vacuum.