Aaron Judge isn’t concerned if free agent Juan Soto ends up getting a larger contract from the New York Yankees than Judge’s own $360 million, nine-year deal.
“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 on Friday, the day after he was named the 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 home runs, 144 RBIs, and 133 walks while hitting .322 as the Yankees made it to the World Series for the first time since 2009, though they lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Soto hit .288 with 41 home runs, 109 RBIs, and 129 walks in his first season with the Yankees and finished third in MVP voting, behind only Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr.
Soto, a 26-year-old free agent, has met with the Yankees, Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Boston Red Sox. He also plans to meet with the Philadelphia Phillies, according to a person familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity since the meetings have not been made public.
The talks are not expected to pick up until after Thanksgiving.
Judge has not spoken to Soto since the World Series. Judge went through the free-agent process after hitting an AL record 62 home runs in 2022.
“The best thing is to really give those guys space,” Judge said. “I talked to him all season and he knows how we feel about him and I think the most important thing is now let him do his thing with his family, pray about it, talk with people and come to the right decision for him and his family.”
Soto met with Yankees officials on Monday at a hotel in Southern California, a group that included owner Hal Steinbrenner, team president Randy Levine, general manager Brian Cashman, manager Aaron Boone, and senior advisor 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 on 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 occupied the second and third spots in the Yankees’ batting order for a franchise-record 153 games, surpassing the 145 games set by 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 a guy like that in front of you.
“If I could have eight Juan Sotos in the lineup with me, I would love that.”
After the World Series, Judge spent about a week in Tampa, Florida, where the Yankees hold spring training, and met with Steinbrenner.
“We kind of just discussed a lot of things from Juan to other guys that are kind of out there that I think could definitely help this team,” Judge said. “So I kind of just gave my input on a couple things.”
Judge said that when he agreed to his big deal in late 2022, Steinbrenner wanted to build a stronger relationship with him. They’ve been meeting every week or two, and pitcher Gerrit Cole has also developed a similar connection with the owner.
“I think just having that relationship to where I can kind of communicate with him about what I’m seeing, what I’m feeling, what I see with the guys, what I see against other guys that we play against,” Judge said. “I think it’s a cool part to where I think just the more communication you have from top to bottom, it just — it makes everybody better.”
Judge’s contract is the fourth-largest in baseball, following the deals of the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani ($700 million), the Los Angeles Angels’ Mike Trout ($426.5 million), and the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts ($365 million).
Judge pointed to teammate Giancarlo Stanton as an example. Stanton’s $325 million contract was the largest when he joined the Yankees before the 2018 season but now ranks tied for ninth.
“Even though he signed one of those — the first big mega-contracts back in Miami, once he came here he didn’t care about being the highest-paid guy. He just wanted good players around him,” Judge said.
When Judge was named a unanimous MVP, joining Mickey Mantle from 1956 as the only Yankees to achieve this, he credited his teammates.
“You look at every single one of my teammates in that room and know that each and every single one of them impacted me in a way that put me in that position,” Judge said. “So it’s always going to be a team award in my book.”
