Plan B: Post-Soto Era Is Looking Great So Far for the Yankees
Although they lost Juan Soto to their crosstown rivals, it's hard to call the Yankees' 2024-25 offseason anything other than a huge success.
Going into this past offseason, most people around the sport, and pretty much all New York Yankees fans themselves, would say that this offseason was Juan Soto or bust. Once Soto decided to sign the most expensive deal in North American sports history, a 15-year, $765 million contract with cross-town rival New York Mets, a cloud of doom fell over the Yankee universe.
After this signing, the Yankees were forced to pivot and make moves to combat Soto’s departure. This forced Brian Cashman to unlock his inner Billy Beane and build Soto in the aggregate. Well, not really, because they are still the New York Yankees, but they did look to take a bunch of All-Stars and past MVPs and put them together to equal Soto’s superstar production.
They did this by locking up an ace in Max Fried, signing former MVP Paul Goldschmidt, and trading for former MVP Cody Bellinger and All-Star reliever Devin Williams. These additions have brought more balance to a roster that sorely needed it after being top-heavy last season. So far, the outcome of these moves has been even better than anyone thought it would be – perhaps even better than Plan A.
All stats for this article were updated prior to games played on May 28, 2025.
Max Fried: Free Agent Signing – Eight Years, $218 Million
Once Soto signed his record deal, the Yankees pivoted hours later, getting a top arm instead in Max Fried. So far this season, Fried has proven to be a huge addition to the team.
Since Gerrit Cole went down for the year with a UCL injury, Fried has been the anchor and ace of this rotation, leading a top-ten rotation in baseball with an MLB-leading 1.29 ERA.
To go along with that ERA, Fried is 7-0 with 70 IP, 67 SO, and a WHIP of 0.93. He is a strong contender for the Cy Young Award with this line and is proving to be exactly what the Yankees needed so far this season.
One of his more recent outings came during rivalry weekend on Sunday Night Baseball against the Mets, where his final line was six innings, three hits, two earned runs, two walks, and eight strikeouts. Fried performed well on the grand stage of the Subway Series and has been great all year. He will look to continue his great start with complete control of his pitch mix and an above-50% groundball rate.
When Fried signed the richest contract for a left-handed pitcher in history, critics and fans thought it might be too expensive even for the All-Star, but so far, he has looked well worth the money.
Paul Goldschmidt: Free Agent Signing – One Year, $12.5 Million
The Yankees have been looking for a consistent, productive first baseman since Anthony Rizzo’s first full year with the team in 2022. Last season, the Yankees ranked dead last in wRC+ at the first base position, so upgrading first base was a main priority in the post-Soto plan.
Paul Goldschmidt, on the open market, was a strong candidate for a bounce-back season after a good second half of 2024, which helped salvage his season last year after a rough start. The Yankees saw enough out of Goldschmidt to give him a one-year deal on a low-risk, high-reward contract.
So far this season, Goldschmidt has been fantastic, looking like a revived hitter. He is hitting .343/.399/490 with five homers and a wRC+ of 153.
Goldschmidt has the highest in-zone contact rate (88.3%) and the lowest strikeout rate of his career (15.5%), and both of these improvements have contributed to his success. A professional hitter who puts together consistently smart at-bats, he has been a leader for this team by setting an example for the younger players.
Cody Bellinger: Trade – Acquired for Cody Poteet
Cody Bellinger and the Yankees have seemed like a match made in heaven for a while now. Bellinger’s father, Clay, won two World Series championships as a Yankee, and his son has let it be known that he wanted to be a Yankee.
Bellinger’s swing always looked like it would play well with the short porch. After a slow start to the season, with a wRC+ of 84 in March and April, he has exploded in May, hitting .329/.389/.588 with five homers and a wRC+ of 144.
This increase in production could be connected to the new open stance that many Yankees have adopted. So far, this change has paid off for the number one offense in baseball. It has also paid off for Bellinger, who has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball this month, highlighted by a 15-game hitting streak early in May and a big grand slam in the Subway Series to put the rubber match away and win the series.
Devin Williams: Trade – Acquired for Nestor Cortes Jr. and Caleb Durbin
Devin Williams had one of the worst starts to the season of any big league pitcher, but he has looked better over the last few weeks and might finally be hitting his stride in pinstripes. The main reason for his struggles was a lack of command, mainly with the fastball. He has since found better command and has gained confidence in setting up his nasty changeup, calling his pitches from the mound via pitch-com
The return of his command has given the Yankees one of the best one-two punches in baseball, with Williams and Luke Weaver to lock down the eighth and ninth.
Plan B Has Been Better than Plan A
When looking at the numbers of the Yankees’ four biggest offseason additions compared to Soto’s .228/.355/.401 slash line, it would be easy to say they have been more valuable than he has. With that being said, Soto is a generational talent who is just in a slump. He will be fine.
Yet, even if Soto soon returns to his superstar level of play, $765 million is still the highest amount of money ever given to a baseball player, and it might be the best thing for the future of the Yankees that they aren’t on the other end of it. The Yankees are paying $58 million this year for all four of Goldschmidt, Fried, Bellinger, and Williams, while Soto himself will cost the Mets upwards of $50 million a year for the next 15 years.
Fried is the only one of those four the Yankees are committed to long term, which will give them some more payroll flexibility that they would have had with Soto on the roster. On top of the flexibility that the Yankees will have in the future, all the moves they made this offseason have paid off so far, and there is little reason to think they won’t continue to do so for the rest of the season.
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Gio Panicola is a student-athlete Business Management major at Endicott College and a writer for Just Baseball, covering the New York Yankees.