NEW YORK (AP) — Aaron Judge won’t be bothered if free agent Juan Soto gets a bigger deal from the New York Yankees than the captain’s $360 million, nine-year contract.
“It ain’t my money. I really don’t care as long as we get the best players, we get the most that we can, I’m happy with whatever,” Judge said Friday, a day after he was a unanimous winner of his second AL MVP award. “That’s never been something on my mind about who gets paid the most.”
Judge led the major leagues with 58 homers, 144 RBIs and 133 walks while hitting .322 as New York reached the World Series for the first time since 2009, only to lose to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Soto batted .288 with 41 homers, 109 RBIs and 129 walks in his first season with the Yankees and finished third in MVP voting, also trailing Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt. Jr.
A free agent at 26, Soto has met with the Yankees, Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox, and he plans to meet with the Philadelphia Phillies, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the meetings have not been publicly announced.
Negotiations are not likely to intensify until after Thanksgiving.
The Yankees sent a delegation to meet with Soto on Monday including owner Hal Steinbrenner, team president Randy Levine, general manager Brian Cashman, manager Aaron Boone and senior adviser for baseball operations Omar Minaya.
“We had a good meeting. It was a very honest back-and-forth dialogue, a couple hours long,” Steinbrenner said Wednesday.
Asked how confident he was about keeping Soto, Steinbrenner said: “No idea. We’ll be in the mix. I’ll leave it at that.”
Soto and Judge filled the Nos. 2 and 3 slots in the Yankees batting order in a franchise-record 153 games, topping the 145 of Joe Dugan and Babe Ruth in 1923, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“I get to see a lot of pitches,” Judge said. “He’s going to be a tough at-bat in front of me. He’s going to wear down the pitcher right there in the first inning, within the first 15 pitches or so. Yeah, I think that was a big impact just having having a guy like that in front of you.
“If I could have eight Juan Sotos in the lineup with me, I would love that.”
