A November 22 X post from SNY showed that New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge not only hadn’t spoken to former Yankee Juan Soto about his free agency since New York lost the World Series, but the two hadn’t communicated during the entire offseason.
“Yeah, I haven’t talked to him at all,” Judge said in a phone interview with SNY when asked about deciding how much to speak to Soto about free agency this offseason.
“I think the best thing is to really give those guys space,” Judge added. “You know, I talked to him all season and he knows how we feel about him. And I think the most important thing is [to] now let him do his thing with his family, pray about it, talk with people, and come to the right decision for him and his family.
“So yeah, I haven’t talked to him at all. I thought I’d talk to him maybe yesterday on the [MVP announcement] call… but he wasn’t there,” the 2024 AL MVP concluded.
Aaron Judge says he has not spoken with Juan Soto at all since the end of the World Series:
"I think the best thing is to really give those guys space. I talked to him all season and he knows how we feel about him." pic.twitter.com/KAEPWjoCwY
— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) November 22, 2024
Soto ended up rejecting the Yankees’ final free agency offer of $760 million for 16 years and elected to sign a 15-year, $765 million contract to join the New York Mets instead.
Soto’s inaugural press conference with the Mets took place on December 12. At one point, he was asked if he had spoken to any of his now-former Yankees teammates since signing with the Mets.
“I haven’t talked to any of those guys,” Soto responded, per an X post from SNY. “We talked to them through the playoffs, at the end of the playoffs. But after I [had] this process, I haven’t talked to anyone [on the Yankees].”
Juan Soto has not spoken with any of his Yankees teammates since the end of the World Series pic.twitter.com/5OoikmrAbi
— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) December 12, 2024
When Soto was asked about whether he had spoken to Judge specifically, he said, “I haven’t,” per SNY.
The reporter then asked Soto if he expected to, and he said, “Yeah. Why not? Yeah. Definitely, at the end of the day, we’re still friends, we’re still cool. Everything that happens, it’s just business-wise. But the relationship that we created last year I think is gonna stay there forever. And I’m looking forward to [that].”
"We're still friends, we're still cool. It's just business. The relationship that we created last year will stay forever."
Juan Soto says he has not spoken with Aaron Judge since his free agency decision, but he plans on doing so: pic.twitter.com/lvN1XdO0ta
— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) December 12, 2024
It will be interesting to see whether Soto and Judge return to speaking terms in the future.
