{"id":15479,"date":"2024-12-05T23:37:16","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T23:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=15479"},"modified":"2024-12-05T23:37:16","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T23:37:16","slug":"juan-soto-will-return-to-yankees-unless-unlikely-team-lands-him-espn-analyst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=15479","title":{"rendered":"Juan Soto Will Return to Yankees Unless \u2018Unlikely\u2019 Team Lands Him: ESPN Analyst"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"post-featured-container-id\">\n<div id=\"post-featured\">\n<div>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Juan-Soto-Yankees-Dodgers-ESPN.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 95vw, 780px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Juan-Soto-Yankees-Dodgers-ESPN.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780 780w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Juan-Soto-Yankees-Dodgers-ESPN.jpg?quality=45&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1100 1100w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Juan-Soto-Yankees-Dodgers-ESPN.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1350 1350w\" alt=\"Juan Soto Will Return to Yankees Unless \u2018Unlikely\u2019 Team Lands Him: ESPN Analyst\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Getty<\/p>\n<p>Juan Soto<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Former New York Yankees outfielder Juan Soto will return to the Yankees, ESPN\u2018s top on-air personality predicted on Wednesday. There is only one \u201cexcuse\u201d for him to leave the Bronx Bombers, but Major League Baseball analysts have said it would be \u201cunlikely\u201d for the generational slugger to take that alternative route.<\/p>\n<p>What is meant by calling Soto a \u201cgenerational\u201d baseball talent? According to a statistical analysis of Soto\u2019s first six MLB seasons, only one hitter in MLB history has ever put up numbers on par with those Soto has produced. That hitter is Ted Williams, often considered the greatest who ever lived.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, talents like Soto\u2019s come along only once per generation, if that. Williams, it should be noted, played in the big leagues from 1939 to 1960, spending his entire career with the Boston Red Sox.<\/p>\n<h2>One Team Offers an Excuse For Soto to Leave Yankees<\/h2>\n<p>But the Yankees, who have won 27 World Series titles and have appeared in the Fall Classic 41 times, more than any other team, most recently last season when they lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games. Signing with the Dodgers would be Soto\u2019s \u201cone excuse on Planet Earth\u201d to depart the Yankees and sign with another team, according to Stephen A. Smith, who now ranks as perhaps ESPN\u2019s most identifiable sports analyst.<\/p>\n<p>Smith made the claim on the Wednesday edition of the network\u2019s popular <em>First Take<\/em> program, in response to a claim by fellow panelist Chris \u201cMad Dog\u201d Russo that Soto was planning to sign with Williams\u2019 old team, the Red Sox. But Russo admitted he had no information to support his assertion that the 26-year-old Soto would be taking his talents to the Fens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t appreciate you bringing that up if you don\u2019t have inside information,\u201d Smith responded, defensively. \u201cDon\u2019t be trying to jinx stuff! Don\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s when Smith named the Dodgers as the only viable alternative for Soto if the star with 201 career home runs fails to sign a new contract in New York.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe point I\u2019m making to you is this,\u201d Smith went on. \u201cThere is only one excuse on the planet Earth for Juan Soto to leave the New York Yankees, and that\u2019s if you go to the Los Angeles Dodgers. There is no other reason to leave the Yankees.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Los Angeles Rated as \u2018Unlikely\u2019 to Nab Soto<\/h2>\n<p>How probable is it that the Dodgers will sign Soto? Despite their reported interest, most baseball experts consider that answer to be \u201cnot very.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Dodgers also met with Soto, but sources indicate that Los Angeles is unlikely to sign the four-time All-Star,\u201d <em>MLB.com<\/em> baseball insider Mark Feinsand reported this week.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, 57, then added that he considered the Red Sox to be merely a \u201cfair-weather stepchild\u201d of the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n<p>While it is true that the Red Sox have won only eight World Series trophies in 13 appearances, since the turn of the 21st century the team\u2019s championship fortunes have been reversed. Starting in the year 2001, the Yankees have won only one World Series in four appearances. The Red Sox have also appeared in four World Series and have won all four.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, the two teams have faced each other in postseason series four times with the Red Sox winning three of those matchups \u2014 the last three in a row \u2014 including in 2004 when the Red Sox came back from an 0-3 deficit to win the American League Championship Series in seven games, the only time in MLB history any team has overcome three-game deficit.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. Vankin is also the author of five nonfiction books on a variety of topics, as well as nine graphic novels including most recently &#8220;Last of the Gladiators&#8221; published by Dynamite Entertainment. More about Jonathan Vankin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former New York Yankees outfielder Juan Soto will return to the Yankees, ESPN\u2018s top on-air personality predicted on Wednesday. There is only one \u201cexcuse\u201d for him to leave the Bronx Bombers, but Major League Baseball analysts have said it would be \u201cunlikely\u201d for the generational slugger to take that alternative route. What is meant by [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Juan Soto Will Return to Yankees Unless \u2018Unlikely\u2019 Team Lands Him: ESPN Analyst - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=15479\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Juan Soto Will Return to Yankees Unless \u2018Unlikely\u2019 Team Lands Him: ESPN Analyst - NEWS USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former New York Yankees outfielder Juan Soto will return to the Yankees, ESPN\u2018s top on-air personality predicted on Wednesday. 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