I guess this makes sense if you never heard of Hideo Nomo.

Ichiro Suzuki, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Yu Darvish, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Kodai Senga, and how can we forget about the immortal Ken Takahashi? None of whom picked the Yankees:

“Since Ohtani...these are three major players that basically had no interest in New York, or the Yankees specifically.”

Sal doesn’t see it as a knock on the Yanks, but it does show that the days of Hideki Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka are over, as the Bombers are now underdogs with the best players from Japan, as many modern players are choosing the Pacific coast.

“It’s the world famous New York Yankees,” Sal said. “They’re still that, even with not winning the World Series since 2009. It’s still the biggest brand in sports. Have the Dodgers eclipsed that now?”

This is not a story.

The Yankees can't lose their pre-eminence among Japanese players because they never had it.

Four prominent Japanese players signed with the Yankees: Matsui, Tanaka, Irabu, and Igawa. Two were good.

Kuroda was a good free agent signing, but he is overlooked because the Yankee teams he played for aren't legendary.

That's it.

That's all I can think of.

Those are the only Japanese players who played for the Yankees.

Oh, wait. Ichiro stopped by on his way to the Hall of Fame, but that's only interesting if you are using that information to fill out a cell in the Immaculate Grid.

It's an answer to a Yankee trivia question, joining the ranks of Kenny Lofton, Andruw Jones, Jose Canseco, Ivan Rodriguez, Lee Smith, and many others you don't associate with the Yankees.

"Oh, yeah!" if you're a big fan, and "they did?" if you're not a big fan. 

There is one other Japanese player who played for the Yankees and I have no recollection of him. His name is Ryota Igarashi. He pitched three innings for the Yankees.

If Sal Licata is so worried about the Yankees' waning influence in Japan, I'll bet Ryota Igarashi would agree to a $100 million contract from the Yankees right now.

It's a troubling trend for the Red Sox.

The Red Sox haven't signed a prominent Japanese player since Koji Uehara and the Red Sox only won 81 games last year.

It's a troubling trend for the Rays, who haven't signed a prominent Japanese player since Akinori Iwamura and have never won a World Series.

It's a troubling trend for the Chicago White Sox who need all the help they can get.

 

The Yankees are not going to sign every free agent.

The Yankees are not going to sign every available player from every country in the world.

For every Ichiro Suzuki there is a Kei Igawa, so chill out.

"Not signing a player" is not troubling and it also isn't a "trend." Three teams are on the table for this guy, which means 29 are not.

"Sasaki continuing the trend of rejection is troublesome moving forward, especially next season. Slugging corner infielder Munetaka Murakami is expected to make the jump to MLB next offseason and he would fit the Bombers like a glove. The left-handed hitter has a career .938 OPS in NPB with 241 homers in seven seasons.

The 24-year-old will be a normal free agent, so he will be able to earn a legitimate contract unlike Sasaki who came over as an International Free Agent and is only limited to signing bonus money and a standard rookie-scale contract. Not to mention, the Yankees will have a clear hole at first base as Paul Goldschmidt was signed as a stop-gap on a one-year deal for whatever long-term plans they have for first.

Murakami’s swing in Yankee Stadium is what dreams are made of for Brian Cashman and company. However, they will have to buck the trend of rejection and pony up the most cash.

If Juan Soto taught the Bombers one thing, it’s few people truly care about the allure of pinstripes and the legacy of the Yankees. It’s merely become a soundbite for players at press conferences who decided to sign the dotted lines with the Bombers because they were the highest bidder.

Sasaki confirmed that sentiment when he became the latest to reject the Bronx."

"Confirmed."

I mean, of course this is true, and it has always been true.

It's also bad news for the Mets and "confirms" that no one wants to sign there unless they are paid $765 million.

I also like the way this guy is not even talking about this player, he's talking about the next player, one year from now, who is expected to come to America, but because Ohtani and Sasaki didn't consider the East Coast, then that means Murakami will not consider the East Coast.

It's a lot to worry about.

Maybe the Yankees will pay Murakami $2 billion and move the team to Hawaii so Murakami is closer to home.

Alonso had a bad year in 2024.

I was going to remind Sal Licata, but then he remembered:

"With that said, Sal does acknowledge that Alonso lost a lot of negotiating power after having arguably the worst season of his career when it was time to secure a payday.

'Pete had a chance to prove himself in a walk year...and he didn’t,' Sal said. 'He wilted like a little flower until the postseason.

'This is part Pete’s fault for not producing the last couple years.' "

I think the Red Sox have a potential superstar in CF who is underappreciated and overlooked.

Does anyone care about my opinion about the CFer in Boston?

Is anyone in Yankee Universe even paying attention to the Red Sox?

Rivalries ebb and flow and the Yankees rivalry with the Red Sox is in a trough.

Except, of course, in Lupica Land.

Where he dusts off one of his favorite go-tos: Pick a player for the Red Sox (81-win team, third place in AL East, 13 games behind the Yankees, missed the playoffs for the fifth time in the past six seasons) and then compare that player to a Yankee player:

"The Red Sox getting Garrett Crochet could turn out to be as big a pitching move in the AL East as the Yankees getting Max Fried.

And the Sox are spending a lot less money to do it."

And?

Lots of things could turn out lots of ways.

If the Red Sox don't win the World Series, does it matter? Just using the Lupica tried-and-true criteria for success.

So it's a "big pitching move." 

Which means what? 

Which means the Red Sox win 100 games? 120? Or just hang around and go for a wild card?

The baseball analysis isn't even why I am fascinated by this blurb.

It feels like turning on the radio and hearing Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant or some blast from the past you hadn't thought of in a while.

Coco Crisp is better than Jacoby Ellsbury ... and the Red Sox are spending A LOT LESS MONEY.

Sandy Leon is better than Brian McCann ... and the Red Sox are spending A LOT LESS MONEY.

Jonathan Papelbon is better than Mariano Rivera ... and the Red Sox are spending A LOT LESS MONEY. (He probably never said that, but I remember some big Papelbon worship period. I think I remember.)

Babe Dahlgren had half the production of Lou Gehrig ... and the Red Sox spent A LOT LESS MONEY.

Who cares?

I mean, the Red Sox are not irrelevant, but they're not top of mind ... and no one expected the Red Sox to field a team in 2025 without a pitching staff.

Yet every move the Red Sox makes is a Reverse Babe Ruth.

The Garret Crochet signing is an epochal shift.

A seismic shift to the American League landscape.

The likes of which haven't been seen since the Yankees surrendered Phil Coke.

The Mets started the 2024 season with a 22-33 record.

Foolish people wrote them off. Because foolish people say foolish things and a lot of people are fools. Baseball fans should know better.

But that's the narrative. The Mets were dead and they rose from the dead and almost made the World Series.

I really don't know how much baseball a person would have to consume in a lifetime before they realize that the players and teams go through slumps and streaks. It's somehow more interesting if these normal circumstances occur at the beginning of the season or at the end of the season.

The 2024 Yankees were 11-24 between mid-June and mid-July, if that means anything. 

Congratulations! You did it! You played awful baseball for a month!

Then they somehow rebounded to make the World Series and go "toe-to-toe" with the Dodgers after nobody thought they could do that.

They're an inspiration to billionaire owners everywhere who can build a winner with luck, pluck, and billions of dollars.

The Yankees also lost to the White Sox by a score of 12-2 on August 12th. So that probably means the White Sox could have beaten the Dodgers in the World Series.

WNBA Champions! You know it! Whoo!

Yankees in the World Series doesn't make the top three in the headlines nor the top four in the pictorial summary of 2024 New York sports.

A brief mention of the World Series appearance, with a focus on the fifth inning of Game Five.

Not a lot of excitement for a team with the rookie of the year, the MVP, Juan Soto #3 MVP, and a trip to the World Series:

"Right before that, the Mets had played the Dodgers a tougher and harder series than the Yankees would in the Series, in the National League Championship Series, going toe-to-toe with them for six games."

There is no interpretation of the NLCS outside of Lupica Derangement Land where the Mets went toe-to-toe with the Dodgers for six games.

Mike Lupica is a lot of deplorable things, but above all, he is a liar.

He isn't this stupid. He's lying. For decades, it has been exceedingly important to him to maintain the illusion that the Mets are better than the Yankees.

Just for the sake of the true record, I will list the scores of the four Mets "toe-to-toe" losses in the NLCS:

9-0

8-0

10-2

10-5

Manaea has a career postseason ERA of 7.76.

The prevailing narrative for Devin Williams is to run away because of one bad inning vs. the Mets in the playoffs.

The narrative for Manaea ignores his 9.00 ERA vs. the Dodgers in the NLCS:

"And while his 4.74 ERA in the postseason did not match his regular-season success, Manaea was solid in three of his four playoff starts."

I actually just looked up Devin Williams in the postseason.

Hilariously bad 23.14 ERA in three career appearances.

Time will tell if he's a legit choker or if this is just small-sample-size noise.

Protesting too much.

"I love building a team,” Suzyn said. “They’re not done. I was told by three different people that they’re not done.

“I love this. This is my favorite thing, which is building a team and not just spending money on a couple people and going that way. They are not done, I am told. We will see what happens.”

This is known as "buying" a team.

“They better get a third baseman here,” Suzyn said. “If you’re gonna spend this money on Max Fried, then you better have a real third baseman standing there, because that’s what he does. That’s where the balls go.

“They gotta do something at third base. Someone has to be standing over there who knows what they’re doing.”

No offense to Chisolm.

I know everyone likes to play accountant, but nothing was stopping the Yankees from signing both Soto and Fried and then trading for Williams and Bellinger.

The limitations of the luxury tax are made up.

There is also no reason to throw shade at the Mets (along with Jazz Chisolm?) for, you know, spending a lot of money on a great player.

Because I guess that means the Mets aren't building a team. They're just taking shortcuts and buying a team.

The Yankees, by contrast, surely aren't top heavy. Not with Bellinger, Stanton, Judge, Cole, Fried, Rodon, and Stroman. 

Even washed-up LeMahieu will be making $15 million in 2025.

Which isn't a lot compared to Soto, but it's not exactly budget-conscious/spread-the-wealth/bottom-up/team-building behavior.

 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I can't say for certain that Sal Licata was hassling Clay Holmes last season. I'd have to look it up.

Since I was the sole defender of Holmes in the entire Milky Way, I think this is an example of a man who believes, as did Emerson, that consistency is the hobgoglin of little minds:

“[Clay] Holmes was an All-Star last year,” Sal said. “Bullpens are fickle. How did Williams do in the postseason? I’ve seen this before with these relievers. They can be untouchable for one or two years, and then all of a sudden they get touched up.

“Holmes was a two-time All-Star with the Yankees…to me, that’s still a wash. Luke Weaver all of a sudden can’t get hit?”

...

“I don’t think that they did [get better],” Sal said. “I think it’s pretty much even.”

I actually agree with his conclusion.

The Yankees lost a good bullpen pitcher and added a slightly better bullpen pitcher.

Williams might pay off in the clutch. Or he might not. I wouldn't dare predict future playoff meltdowns because of one big-time meltdown vs. the Mets.

In the regular season, I expect Williams to be elite, and I expect one or two more wins due to an elite closer instead of a pretty good closer.

For the millionth time, it also depends of the defense, starting rotation, and offense.

If the defense improves around him ... and I have high hopes that it will ... then he won't have nearly as many blown saves where he doesn't allow an earned run. 

So if I agree with Sal, then what's the gripe?

The gripe is that Public Enemy #1 Clay Holmes is quickly being re-imagined as a reliable All Star as soon as he puts on the Met uniform instead of the Yankee uniform.

It's the intellect of a toddler blaming its sibling for breaking the lamp.

Everything the Mets do is good and everything the Yankees do is bad.

"People keep saying, well, yeah, but Soto will be a DH in a few years.

David Ortiz was a DH.

How’d that work out for the Red Sox?"

Right.

Lots of people in baseball history have been DHs and many of them have won World Series.

Got it.

But that doesn't explain something peculiar about this paragraph. 

According to Lupica, "people keep saying" something that no one is saying.

I searched for "Juan Soto" + "designated hitter" in an AI search engine and I could not find any recent articles.

Other than Bill Madden.

In the Daily News.

On the same page.

Many people have pointed out the obvious fact that a 15-year contract is risky at the back end. Some observers have focused on the obvious fact that Soto is not a true five-tool player.

I am unaware of any group of "people" that have criticized the signing, diminished Soto's "generational" talent as an offensive player, or given one damn that he may or may not DH. 

Make room for Soto.

Lupica is once again inventing a non-existent counter argument so he can land a very mediocre zinger.

"David Ortiz."

Ouch!

"You know what we call the pitch that Devin Williams, the new Yankee closer, threw to Pete Alonso in the playoffs?

An Aroldis Chapman."

Hilarious.

No one calls it that, but I understand the reference.

How does Lupica reconcile this Chapman dig with Chapman's signing with the Red Sox? It must be a devastating war inside of Lupica's head.

It's also, like ... Devin Williams is a low-cost/low-risk pretty good closer. 

A one-year contract for a closer who has been dominant in the regular season and, in the playoffs, blew a save, just like every other closer in the 2024 playoffs.

Lupica is mocking people who are claiming Williams is going to jettison the Yankees to a championship. But no one is saying this.

A win for Scott Boras.

The luxury suite, huh?

Either the Yankees charge a heckuva lot for luxury suites or $760 million doesn't go as far as it used to. After taxes, who knows how much is left? Maybe a few thousand bucks. Soto's family would have had to sit in the bleachers.

Is this really that complicated?

Soto is a grown man who decided he preferred to play for the Mets. He would have been paid plenty by the Mets, the Yankees, or any team that signed him.

That is what free agency is.

As for the luxury suites, I'm reminded of the time the Mets supposedly refused to capitulate to ARod's demands because the Mets were insistent on avoiding a "24 and 1" situation.

So silly.

So many people straining their necks to focus on the pebbles and acting like there is more to the story than the $765 million asteroid.

While Lupica et al like to rip ARod for winning "only" one championship, it's one more than the Cohesive Clubhouse in Queens has won in the same time period.

My only objection to the Yankees signing Alonso is that it will embolden the lunatics who have been predicting this exact thing for the past year.

Ralph from Jersey called WFAN in April and said the Yankees will sign Alonso and the Mets will sign Soto. Ralph from Jersey will tell everyone he knows about this for the rest of his life.

What Ralph from Jersey leaves out is that he also thought the Yankees should skip Gerrit Cole and sign Madison Bumgarner and Matt Harvey.

Ralph from Jersey also said that the Yankees were going to fire Boone and hire Wally Backman as their manager.

Ralph from Jersey also said Greg Bird was a future AL MVP. Bird reminded Ralph from Jersey of John Olerud and Shawn Green.

We're talking about Michael King.

"This wasn't just the Mets beating the Yankees for a cornerstone player for the first time ever (the Yanks' half-hearted pursuit of Carlos Beltran before the 2005 season was not like this)."

If you're going to hype Michael King, might I remind you of Dellin Betances?  

 

"It was the Mets doing so with the Yanks fresh off their first World Series appearance in 15 years, which was only possible because of the presence of Soto, who had formed one of the most dynamic 1-2 lineup punches in baseball history with the otherworldly Aaron Judge.

And it was the Mets doing so just over a year after the Yankees traded an absolute haul to the San Diego Padres -- including potential future ace Michael King -- in order to get one year of Soto and what they likely hoped would be an inside track to signing him long-term."

I know Mets fans are giddy right now, but why be dumb about it?

I like King, I really do. I like Clay Holmes, too, for that matter.

The Yankees did not trade an "absolute haul" for Soto. The Yankees took a risk, but it wasn't an unkown risk.

 

"To put it more succinctly, there was a very easy argument to be made that the Mets had the better future than the Yanks.

...

Soto saw the money, yes. But he also saw what the Mets are building. Soto chose the Mets' future over the Yankees' past. And in the process, baseball in New York has been forever changed."

Maybe so, maybe not. I see no down side for the Mets. I also think the Yankee brand is quite enduring and strong, so let's not put Yankee Stadium in mothballs just yet.

 

"Worth."

Of course Soto is worth it.

It's partially his value on the field, which is immense, but also it's his hype factor. The Ruth & Gehrig/Mantle & Maris evocation.

No one is marketing Judge & Bregman to the out-of-town tourists.

Boomer knows this to be true. No need to bring up silly three-players-for-one combined WAR analyses.

Everything that happens is an example of a thing happening.

The Mets can change the "other team in town" narrative ... hadn't you heard about this by now? ... if they sign Soto, thereby beating the Yankees in a bidding war and also removing Soto from the Yankees' roster, and also by winning the World Series sooner than the Yankees.

"Change the narrative" is Lupica's three-word summary of a very simple and obvious idea.

So how does Lupica get there?

1. The Yankees need Soto more than the Mets need Soto because it's a "well-established baseball fact" that the Mets are better than the Yankees.

1a. Soto had a lot to do with Judge's 58-HR MVP season.

1b. Soto is younger than Judge.

1c. Soto is younger than Ohtani.

1d. Soto is older than Witt, but not much older.

2. Mike Piazza and Kevin Durant.

3. Soto does not guarantee either team a Championship.

3a. The aforementioned Piazza never won a Championship with the Mets (I added that).

3b. Alex Rodriguez only won one Championship with the Yankees.

3c. The Padres won more games in 2024 without Soto than they won in 2023 with Soto. (This is a Lupica favorite, but it seems like very ordinary professional baseball behavior to me.) 

3d. Jason Giambi, for some reason.

3e. Kevin Durant once again.

4. Soto is really good and young.

4a. Alex Rodriguez signed a big contract.

4b. Ohtani signed a big contract.

5. Good players would likely help the Mets win, but maybe not, and it is even better if the player used to be a Yankee.