Which Team And How Much For How Long?
Juan Soto decided to sign with the New York Mets after a bidding war broke out between the Yankees and Mets. After receiving a reported $760M/16-year deal, the Mets upped it to $765M/15-years and that’s what Soto ultimately chose. This contract includes an opt-out after the fifth season, or have this voided if the Mets give him a raise from $51M/season to $55M/season for the final decade, which could bump up the total contract amount to $805M after all is said and done, assuming that Soto does not opt out of his contract or the team does not give him the raise if he does. There is also no deferred money, a $75M signing bonus, $15M worth of escalators (Awards and milestones one could only assume) AND it is largest total value contract in MLB history as of signing, along with being the longest contract in MLB history as of signing.
What Does He Have To Do?
We already have some people looking at performance per year in order to make this contract “worth it”. My good friend and sometimes co-host on the podcast used Juan Soto’s 2024 performance (his best to date) and how much he was “worth”, getting 8.03fWAR per season, for 15 seasons to make this contract be worth it. That could also be summed up into a total of about 120 fWAR over the next fifteen seasons, or just a touch better than Lou Gehrig’s entire career, to put it in perspective. This contract is actually a massive overpay according to The Paraball Notes predicted $6.7m/WAR for 2024 free agents, if you use Soto’s career average WAR of 5.1fWAR over seven seasons, where he “should” be paid $34.7M a season, rather than the massive $51M he will be getting. But baseball contracts always seem to be based off of “what have you done for me lately” which in this case was help a team make it to the World Series. Can you put a price on that?
Why The Mets?
With this massive signing, it may be safe to say that the Mets will not be bringing Pete Alonso back, but it’s not a sure thing. If Pete doesn’t get brought back, then Juan Soto automatically becomes your main draw for fans, the face of the franchise. I think if he were to go to the Yankees, he may have had a better immediate chance at a World Series ring, but at the cost of being in the shadow of two-time AL MVP, ROY, AL single-season HR Record holder Aaron Judge. Judge came up in the Yankees system, whereas Soto was just a piece added late in the season to push them to the playoffs. There is no Juan Soto version of “All Rise!”, not yet at least. Scott Boras expertly played the Yankees front office like a fiddle, using their last offer as leverage to get Soto a deal that will take him to his age-40 season in a Mets uniform. 
