Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post
The presence of Steve Cohen, in particular, is forcing the Yankees to more seriously contemplate what Plans B, C and D look like if Plan A, Juan Soto, signs elsewhere, notably with the Mets.
If Cohen’s intentions needed verification or amplifying, then Carlos Beltran, an assistant to David Stearns, provided it by telling a newspaper in his native Puerto Rico that, “The Mets will go full blast for [Soto].”
And “full blast” for Cohen is very likely to win if Soto is prioritizing the highest bid. At minimum, it is another piece of evidence that the Yankees very well might have to veer from their main priority this offseason. If so, their management/baseball operations group has been together so long that they have experienced nearly every contingency already.
So to get an idea of what blueprint the Yankees might follow sans Soto, we simply have to go through the index and find a time when an elite lefty hitter was entering free agency, not willing to give the Yankees much of a discount to stay, and the team was worried about blowing by luxury-tax thresholds. And there is Robinson Cano at the end of the 2013 season — not to mention a four-letter last name ending in “o.”