Yankees general manager Brian Cashman was asked Tuesday if Pete Alonso‘s name came up in his talks with agent Scott Boras, who represents the slugger.
“Yeah, sure he did,” Cashman told reporters. “So there’s a lot of high-quality players in this marketplace and certainly Pete did an amazing job with the Mets. And so, had a brief conversation with Scott … he has a lot of free agents, which is normal, and Pete is one of them, so yes.”
This comes as no surprise, as the Mets are expected to be on Juan Soto, who is the Yankees’ No. 1 priority to re-sign. It’s, at the very least, a bit of gamesmanship by Cashman. The Yankees also have a legit need at first.
Boras also represents Juan Soto and Cashman shrugged when he was asked what kind of threat the Mets were to signing the offseason’s biggest prize.
“I mean, they, you know, it’s hard to say. … They want to win. They are in a large market with us. They had a taste of success this year and they want to move the needle even more forward so. And the best way to do that is import quality players to what you already have. So that’s what we, they and anybody interested in winning and being the last team standing. That’s what it’s all about is trying to find great players and add it to your mix.”
Does it worry Cashman that Mets owner Steve Cohen is the richest in baseball?
“I think that’s just the nature of the beast. And big market owners with deep pockets aren’t the only ones signing players to big deals. You’ve seen the San Diego Padres sitting out on the West Coast. They’ve imported a lot of big-time players with big-time contracts that they’ve out-competed other teams of interest for.
“So it comes in various forms in various cities at various times. So the the market on a year-in, year-out basis is strong from all different aspects of the baseball universe so we do our best to compete with whomever on a year-in, year-out basis.”
Cashman said the Yankees are willing to meet with Soto as many times as he wants, but they understand he may want to get together with other teams because he is already familiar with the Yankees. If they don’t re-sign Soto, they will move on.
“There’s a lot of different players in this marketplace that can positively impact this roster in different ways,” Cashman said. “So we will be working on every aspect of opportunity and exploring any way possible to put together the best team we possibly can for 2025 because we want to get back to where we just finished, which was in the World Series.”
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