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Jeff Passan, ESPNDec 8, 2024, 10:43 PM ET
- ESPN MLB insider
Author of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports”
DALLAS — Fifteen years, $765 million, no deferred money. The numbers of Juan Soto‘s contract with the New York Mets, agreed to Sunday night in a deal that sets a new standard for the largest contract in professional sports history, tell a story. A baseball-loving phenom from the Dominican Republic arrived in the big leagues at 19 years old, thrived instantaneously, bet on himself by turning down a $440 million contract offer two years ago and now emerges with a record number of dollars and years — and reminds the sports world of the endless possibilities when extreme talent meets a free market.
It’s not the only story, though. This is as much about the Mets as it is Soto — about a franchise that for its 63-year existence has lived in the shadow of its pedigreed neighbor. Not anymore. Not after the two New York teams went head-to-head for a player who spent 2024 in the Bronx but decamped to Queens for a long-term commitment.
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Think about that for a second. A Yankee chose to be a Met. And not just any Yankee: one that helped lead the storied franchise to the World Series this year, one whom the team was equally prepared to pay $700 million-plus over 15 seasons. The sheer size of Soto’s contract — bigger than Shohei Ohtani‘s deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, bigger than Lionel Messi’s with Barcelona, bigger than Patrick Mahomes’ with the Kansas City Chiefs — boggles the mind. Even more stunning is the Mets’ glow-up from a team whose foibles were its defining feature to the destination for an archetypal free agent.
And for that, every giddy Mets fan, from Astoria to Jamaica, Whitestone to Far Rockaway, can thank Steve Cohen. When Cohen bought the team in 2020, hope — something previously in short supply to Mets fans — percolated. One of the world’s richest men, worth an estimated $20 billion, was buying their team. And he was poised to build a juggernaut.
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Failures dotted Cohen’s first four years as owner, but no longer were they the franchise’s defining feature. He struck gold with the Francisco Lindor trade and subsequent contract extension. He found the right president of baseball operations in David Stearns and the right manager in Carlos Mendoza. More than anything, Cohen upended the culture inside, and around, the organization. After decades of carrying themselves like a mid-market team, the Mets grew into the primordial version of what they could be: a frightening machine, replete with talented people and an owner willing to go where others wouldn’t.
Soto’s signing signifies the next step in the Mets’ evolution. This is not yet a championship team — their run to the NLCS this season took a stroke of fortune — but it’s got the bones of one. And with Stearns’ know-how, Mendoza’s feel and Cohen’s support, the Mets’ foundation is rock solid, capable of withstanding the tectonic shifts that fell lesser franchises.
A lineup with Lindor and Soto’s names in the first two spots and emerging star Mark Vientos‘ in the third is as good as any outside of Los Angeles, where the team that ousted the Mets in October and went on to win the World Series resides. If there is a proper blueprint to follow, it is the Dodgers’, and Cohen is not too proud to see success and attempt to replicate it. New York’s depth doesn’t match Los Angeles’ — even after signing Clay Holmes and Frankie Montas to join a rotation with Kodai Senga and David Peterson — and it’s unlikely to by Opening Day next year. Which is fine. Because the Mets are not trying to win just in 2025. They want to win in 2025 and 2026 and 2027 and 2028 and all the way to 2039, when Soto’s deal is set to expire.
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Winning takes time, even for a team whose payroll could be the largest in the major leagues for a third consecutive season. Their farm system isn’t where it needs to be, and getting there will become even tougher with the back-of-the-round draft picks that accompany success. For all of the Mets’ positives — Edwin Diaz patrolling the ninth inning, Brandon Nimmo taking professional at-bats, Francisco Alvarez ready to make the leap — a team is more than its 10 best players. More talent is needed.
Soto is one hell of a start. This October, his ability to meet the moment validated all the plaudits lavished on him since his 2018 debut. He displayed his power when it mattered. He spit on pitches just outside the strike zone. He lived up to an idealized version of himself and waltzed into a free agent market frothing to reward him. Everything conspired in Soto’s favor. In a game rightly obsessed with age, he was the rare 26-year-old available with no cost but cash. In a game where pitching regularly overwhelms hitting, he stands alongside Ohtani and Aaron Judge, his former Yankees teammate, as the top hitters on the planet. In a game frightened by free agent failures, he cut the figure of a sure-enough thing that not only the Mets and Yankees but the Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays pushed themselves far beyond what they imagined they would in an effort to get him.
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Because of the impossibility in predicting baseball, all of this could fall apart spectacularly. For $765 million, the Mets could have signed a handful of excellent free agents. But for a betting man — Cohen made his riches on Wall Street — this looks like the beginning of a golden era for Mets baseball. While the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies have owned the National League East and the Dodgers loom in any postseason run, Soto’s contract is a statement: The Mets are building something great. So hop on board, lest the 7 train leave the station without you.
Soto’s agent, Scott Boras, finalized his contract at the winter meetings in Dallas, where baseball’s first true mega-contract was agreed to 24 years ago, almost to the day. Alex Rodriguez, also represented by Boras, was a 25-year-old whose 10-year, $252 million deal with the Texas Rangers doubled the previous record guarantee. Rodriguez opted out of the deal in 2007 and re-signed for $275 million. The next time anyone signed for more was Giancarlo Stanton‘s 13-year, $325 million contract. That was in 2015.
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For a decade and a half, Rodriguez’s deals stood as the standard. When Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million contract — which, on account of deferrals, has a present-day value under $500 million — smashed the record for total guarantee last winter, it seemed a safe bet to hold the mark for a long while. It lasted less than a year.
That’s because Juan Soto is Juan Soto, and because Steve Cohen is Steve Cohen, and because the game is the game, subject to change at any moment. And change it did Sunday, with dollars and years and choices and consequences — a new story ready to be written.
