Ajax, Baas and the Valuation Paradox: The Better Footballer Is the Harder Sell

On a January evening I stayed behind alone in the newsroom with two hours of Ajax footage, rewinding one phase nobody notices: a left-sided centre-back receives the ball near the touchline, turns on his left foot, and sweeps a forty-metre diagonal into the feet of the right winger. No goal, no contact, nothing for a fifteen-second clip. I stayed anyway. In the pouring rain, I saw a star nobody had looked up at.

The player was Youri Baas. And in the very week the winter window opened, that name was dragged into a debate most supporters only hear the first half of.

A title-chasing team, a player losing his place

Ajax entered this phase with a goal stated bluntly: winning the Eredivisie. Every squad decision in Amsterdam is measured against that. In the words of Mike Verweij, De Telegraaf's long-time Ajax correspondent, speaking on a club-adjacent podcast, selling Baas mid-title-race would be “very strange”.

There is precedent. In the summer Porto came for Baas and Ajax said no. This is a club neither short of money nor short of ambition to the point of selling a centre-back in a season where they have staked a title on it.

But one detail sits askew, mentioned and then dropped too fast: Baas has made 14 appearances this season and is no longer an undisputed starter. In Amsterdam people have begun to worry about his place as Janse emerges. Baas himself, asked about it, offered a very open line: “A lot happened in the summer.”

Those three data points — title race, Porto precedent, shaky starting status — do not automatically arrange themselves into one conclusion. They arrange into two opposing ones, and which one you pick says more about the market than about the player.

The sharpest point sits in a sentence placed in the wrong slot

Of everything Verweij said, the most valuable line sounds like a shrug: Janse is “much more of a Premier League type”, bigger, stronger; Baas “is the better footballer”, but “I don't know whether a Premier League club would be quick to buy Youri Baas”.

Read slowly for three seconds and it flips the whole axis of the argument. People argue about who plays better. The market argues about who sells. The transfer value of an Ajax centre-back is decided not at De Toekomst but in the boardroom of an English club. There they do not measure a forty-metre diagonal; they measure height, stride, and how you cope with the February rain in Lancashire.

From my experience watching matches in the lower divisions and European qualifiers, this paradox repeats reliably: the player rated highest by domestic experts is often the hardest to sell abroad, because his file is written in a language the buyer does not read.

Set against Ajax's revenue model, the picture clears. Amsterdam lives by developing and selling: Frenkie de Jong to Barcelona in 2026, Matthijs de Ligt to Juventus the same year, Lisandro Martínez and Antony to Manchester United in 2026. Selling to reinvest is the cement of the system, not something to be ashamed of. So when Verweij says Ajax see the greatest future in Janse, he is describing a development path. Read less kindly, he is describing sellability. Those are different claims, and the article merges them.

In fairness, the sourcing is skilled. Verweij is named, his words are clearly marked as forecast rather than finding; Sedee appears as a doubting voice; Baas gets a single quote. But there is an editorial crack: Verweij says “very strange”, while the body drifts toward “unthinkable”. From conditional prediction to near-certainty — that drift happens between attribution layers, and it belongs to the editorial voice, not the interviewee.

Three gaps are worth noting: no contract length or wages for Baas, the two variables that decide mid-season feasibility; no check on the buyer side, since Porto's interest belongs to the summer; and no voice arguing Ajax should sell now.

The other side of the mirror

The counter-case stands firmer than people assume. A player with 14 appearances who is no longer certain of a start is exactly the kind of player clubs sell most often, because he still has market value but no longer has an irreplaceable role. If Janse takes the spot, Baas's price will not wait politely; it slides with every match he sits out. Holding a depreciating asset for a short-term goal can be right, but it is a financial decision dressed as a sporting one.

The “Premier League type” premise deserves challenge too. Many English clubs now prioritise centre-backs who can pass and break pressure with a left foot, not merely ones with frames. A left-sided defender converting a forty-metre diagonal into the right winger's feet is what plenty of English coaches are looking for. If Ajax believe otherwise, they are pricing against the market of 2026.

And here I have to say it plainly, without mercy: if Ajax's technical leadership genuinely believe Janse is the future of the back line, then keeping Baas until summer is a financial gamble decorated with sporting language. If they are keeping him because nobody has paid enough, then the title-race story is a curtain over a much simpler calculation.

What lingers

The transfer market is where dreams are priced in black ink on white paper. There, a better footballer can be valued below a more “suitable” one, and nobody has to apologise. The ball does not lie, but it does tell stories — and this January story is about a defender passing with his left foot while the whole market asks how many kilos he weighs.

When January closes, Baas may still be in Amsterdam, Janse still on the bench, and nothing may happen at all. But the real question the original piece raised and left hanging remains: is Ajax keeping Baas to win now, or keeping him because nobody has paid enough? Summer will answer, and it will answer with a number no commentator needs to explain.