The Yankees will cling to any little edge here…

Tampa Bay Rays v New York Yankees / Adam Hunger/GettyImages

Either the New York Mets just added a perfect defensive caddy for Juan Soto while saving $8 million on their center field platoon for 2025, or they just royally pissed him off. Yankees fans, obviously, are hoping for the latter.

Though recent reports have placed the Yankees behind the free-wheeling Blue Jays in the Soto chase, most agree the decision will eventually come down to which New York offer he prefers. Can the Yankees craft a monetary package that’s worth Soto’s while, all while Steve Cohen tries to decide between the right fielder and another piece of rare art that looks like a stick figure?

If the cash is close, the Yankees would like to hope that Soto prefers the experience he just had, which resulted in a World Series berth. And maybe, just maybe, every little piece of the chemistry puzzle matters.

Which begs the question, does Soto want to share an outfield with a player who bothered him so strongly with his home run trot last summer that the Yankees slugger walked around the bases in retaliation after sending a baseball to Mars?

Yankees outfielder Juan Soto trolled new Mets addition Jose Siri while facing the Rays last summer

A certain number on the blank check will make this all go away, but still … kind of an odd player to target when seemingly every little thing matters.

Purportedly, during Hal Steinbrenner and Co.’s face-to-face meeting with Soto, the superstar listed a few changes he’d like made to the Yankees roster, and Steinbrenner assured him that the roster-building would not suddenly cease if Soto came on board for 13-to-15 years. That level of conversational depth makes Soto’s intent to take the Yankees seriously seem real. It also makes clear that if the generational slugger’s going to join any team, he’ll want the roster remade slightly in his image.

Maybe he and Siri get along behind the scenes. After all, they’re both supremely confident in their own abilities. The only difference is, one of them is Juan Soto and one of them is Jose Siri. There’s a minute possibility this ultimately affects the bidding war, but hey, we wouldn’t take that chance.