Juan Soto is expected to sign as early as Sunday or Monday, which will finally conclude one of the more exciting free agency sweepstakes in MLB history. Five teams remain in pursuit of Soto, all reportedly having offers of at least $600 million on the table. Those five teams are the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays, and Boston Red Sox.
But even in the final days of negotiations, it seems like things are changing.
The rumors have indicated Soto would want a 15-year deal signing him through his age-41 season. The money has been rumored to cap around $700 million.
But ESPN’s Buster Olney has a bit of a different idea. Olney, given the intensity of these negotiations that are still ongoing, thinks Soto could land even more than $700 million.
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“It’s a perfect storm of bidding, and through the use of deferrals, it does not seem out of the realm of possibility that the broad strokes of his deal could be something in the range of $750 million over 15 years,” Olney wrote.
The interesting caveat here is the idea of deferred money. With deferred money in play, Soto could absolutely clear $700 million, especially with a team like the Dodgers in pursuit.
But it’s widely known that Soto doesn’t want any deferred money in his contract. And if he does take a bit of deferred money, it would be in small amounts, not to the level of Shohei Ohtani’s contract.
Will Soto’s deal reach $750 million? In all likelihood, no. But it’s going to clear $600 million by quite a bit and that’s no number to scoff at.
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