Carroll’s Column: Soto and Judge Saga

Image Credit: George Napolitano/Bill Menzel - Latino Sports

NEW YORK, NY — After twenty-two games played in each of the New York Mets and Yankees’ regular seasons for 2025, New Yorkers are in for a long campaign between the crosstown baseball rivals. 

Last Monday, Juan Soto told NY Post Mets beat writer Mike Puma that he is seeing different pitch sequences as a Met with Pete Alonso hitting behind him than he did last year when he was playing in the Bronx and Aaron Judge followed him in the batting order.    

Soto was not complaining or casting aspersions at his new teammate, Pete Alonso. He was merely stating a fact and said that he is adjusting to it. Soto has not been hitting like an All-Star, but he has not been awful either in the first weeks of the 2025 season. He has belted some home runs and has shown patience at the plate by taking more than his share of walks rather than chasing bad pitches.      

Nevertheless, any Soto statement concerning Aaron Judge, and by default, Alonso, is going to cause a media brouhaha. Last Tuesday at Yankee Stadium, reporters swarmed all over Judge prior to the Yankees game with the Kansas City Royals. Judge, as always, took the high road and was the voice of reason. He said Juan Soto is a great player and will be fine with the Mets. He also praised Alonso for the fine season he is having.

This really was a case of the media making a mountain out of a molehill.      

Judge was also named the captain of Team USA which will take part in the 2026 World Baseball Classic. I asked the Royals’ shortstop Bobby Witt, Jr., who is one of the best players in baseball today, if he expected Judge to lobby him to be part of his team. “I don’t know if I am good enough!” Witt Jr. said with a straight face. “I have a feeling they can find a way to squeeze you onto the roster,” I replied.

He gave out a hearty laugh and admitted he would love to be part of Team USA.     

Catching up with Seth Lugo

Former Mets pitcher Seth Lugo, one of the game’s all-time good guys, is now the ace of the Royals. Last year, he was named the 2024 American League LatinoMVP Starting Pitcher of the Year and finished second in the voting behind the Yankees’ Gerrit Cole for the AL Cy Young Award.     

Lugo left the Mets as a free agent after the 2022 season because he wanted to be a starting pitcher. The Mets’ general manager at the time, Billy Eppler, did not want to give him that opportunity. It is just one of many reasons why Eppler is a former general manager.     

I asked Lugo if he chuckled when he heard the Mets signed former Yankees relief pitcher Clay Holmes as a free agent with the intention of turning him into a starter. “No, I was happy for him. It is difficult for most relievers to get more than one-year contracts these days,” he replied.       

Rough Weather Conditions for MLB Players

Yankees relief pitcher Ryan Yarbrough was asked by YES Network Yankees reporter Meredith Marakovits two weeks ago about the dangers of playing on a field soaked with rain following a 9-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants. Yarbrough conceded that it was a concern.      

Last Tuesday, I spoke with Yarbrough about whether Major League Baseball should change its current schedule where every MLB team faces every other one for at least one three-game series since that makes it more difficult to allow rainouts and makeup games given the intense travel schedule and few open dates available during the six-month regular season.      

He surprised me with his answer. “I get the arguments about changing the current format, but I like the idea of playing every other team. When I first got to the majors, there were many players who never got a chance to play in certain ballparks and cities, and they regretted not having that opportunity.”      

Yarbrough laughed when I told him he could have a career with the State Department after he retires from baseball given his diplomacy skills.     

Rays settling in at new home: George M. Steinbrenner Field

Hurricane Milton tore through central Florida last October. One of its property casualties was the roof getting blown off at the Tampa Bay Rays stadium, the Tropicana Dome in St. Petersburg. That left the Rays homeless for 2025.    

Coming to their rescue was Yankees CEO Hal Steinbrenner whose family has been part of the Tampa area community for generations. He allowed the Tampa Bay Rays to use the Yankees spring training facility, Steinbrenner Field, located on one of Tampa’s main thoroughfares, Dale Mabry Boulevard, for this season.      

I ran into Hal on Tuesday, just before the Yankees were scheduled to play in Tampa, and I asked him if Rays owner Stu Sternberg (who grew up a Mets fan in Westchester) was grateful for his magnanimous gesture. “I would say all of Major League Baseball is appreciative,” he replied.” I then asked him if the Rays would fare a lot better attendance-wise on the Tampa side of the bay as opposed to the more remote St. Petersburg side. “I was hoping they would build that proposed stadium in Ybor City (Tampa’s old Cuban district), but the plan seems to be to return to the Tropicana Dome when it is repaired,” he said.      

Minor League Baseball in New Jersey 

If the weather is nice this weekend and you are in the mood for a brief road trip, the Mets A-level minor league team, the Brooklyn Cyclones will be playing their Philadelphia Phillies’ counterpart, the Jersey Shore BlueClaws who are enjoying their 25th anniversary playing in Lakewood’s beautiful Shoretown Ballpark.     

New York or Nowhere and Mets partner together for team-branded merchandise 

The upscale leisure apparel company, New York or Nowhere, which makes t-shirts, hoodies, sweats, and shorts, has just signed a licensing agreement with the Mets for team-branded merchandise.

New York or Nowhere currently has licensing deals with the Knicks, Rangers, Yankees, and “Saturday Night Live”/NBC.     

Nets’ plans to improve in-game experience at Barclays Center 

The Brooklyn Nets have been an awful franchise in recent seasons, but I must give them credit for trying to improve the in-game experience at Barclays Center for visually impaired fans starting next season. The team has partnered with Ticketmaster, and a technology company, OneCourt, that will allow fans with vision loss to touch a screen where they can follow the movement of the basketball up and down the court. Now visually impaired Nets fans can get as upset with the team’s poor play in real time as sighted ones do.      

Dallas Wings select Paige Bueckers with No. 1 overall selection in 2025 WNBA Draft 

The 2025 WNBA Draft was held last Monday at The Shed event space in Hudson Yards. As expected, University of Connecticut star Paige Bueckers was selected with the first pick by the Dallas Wings. The New York Post reported that Bueckers was not happy to be selected by Dallas and it showed at her press conference following her selection. While she was careful not to criticize her new team, she came as taciturn and did not smile. I guess playing in a city which is a furnace during the late spring, all summer, and early fall, does not make up for working in a state with no income tax.     

Speaking of taxes, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert and I were both CPAs in former lives, something we remind each other of at every WNBA Draft. During her press briefing, Engelbert mentioned how Coach was a new league partner, and that every WNBA draftee that night would be getting an expensive Coach handbag. “Will Coach be issuing 1099s for the full retail value of the merchandise to each player?” I asked. “You are always thinking like an accountant!” she laughed as she stepped off the podium.      

Mizuho Americas working towards increase visibility and popularity of LPGA

Women’s golf has not developed household name stars the way women’s basketball, tennis, and soccer have. The LPGA has been hamstrung by a lack of television coverage. Mizuho Americas, an international bank whose parent company is headquartered in Japan, is working hard to increase the visibility and popularity of the sport.     

It has contributed significantly to many female grassroots golf organizations, and it is the chief sponsor for arguably the LPGA’s most prestigious event, the Mizuho Americas Open, which will take place May 8-11 at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City.

The views of lower Manhattan, and of course, the Statue of Liberty are spectacular from what I recall covering the Northern Trust PGA Tournament a few years ago. There will be ferry service from Brookfield Place at Manhattan’s World Financial Center to shuttle fans across the Hudson. Mizuho Americas officials told me the players will be taking the same ferries so you may be able to get some golf tips on route.

More from Mizuho Americas at recent kickoff LPGA event 

Michelle Wie West, who recently retired from the LPGA Tour, is serving as a brand ambassador for the Mizuho Americas Open. She was in town last for a kickoff event for the tournament. When she turned pro in 2009, many thought she would become the Tiger Woods of women’s golf. I asked her if the pressure which comes along with that kind of hype bothered her at the time. “No, not really. You cannot control what the media is going to write about you,” she replied.

125th New York International Auto Show at Javits Center

The 125th New York International Auto Show got underway at Javits Center last Friday and it will run through Sunday. Attendees will get to see historic vehicles such as the 1900 Cadillac, the 1910 Ford Model “T,” and the 1963 Corvette, in addition to the latest models from auto manufacturers around the world. 

Toyota is not choosing sides when it comes to New York baseball teams as it had both a Yankees pinstripe truck and a blue and orange pickup which had Mr. Met emblazoned on it at the 2025 Auto Show. Honda featured a dark green New York Jets truck. I don’t think Aaron Rodgers will be buying one any time soon.

You can read more of Lloyd Carroll’s columns posted weekly on The Queens Chronicle.