Juan SotoFree agency will be the main narrative this offseason until he chooses his next destination, though there are no indications that things are imminent. The 26-year-old star started meeting with teams this week but it is still in the early stages of the process. For example, Sean McAdam of MassLive.com reports that while the Red Sox felt their three-hour meeting with Soto and agent Scott Boras was “productive,” it was more productive and educational than anything else. The two sides did not discuss years and dollars; the Sox focused Soto on their future plans, their next wave of top prospects and other aspects of the organization, while Soto wanted to learn about their scouting methods, Fenway Park locations, etc. It is normal in the first meetings of this. it’s the nature of high-level free agents to be introductory in nature, so this is no different for Soto.
The Red Sox haven’t dabbled in the deep waters of free agency in recent offseasons. Trevor’s story it’s the Sox’s only nine-figure spending spree in the last five years. Since signing David Price in 2015, the Red Sox only exceeded two years in free agency four times (Story, JD Martinez, Masataka Yoshida again Nathan Eovaldi). Given that, it’s not surprising to see one of the things Soto hoped to measure (through McAdam) was the team’s “commitment to victory.”
That said, Rob Bradford of WEEI.com tweets that the Red Sox are approaching their pursuit of Soto with a level of “intent” that we haven’t seen in Boston in “some time.” Purpose alone won’t win a bid, of course, but the Sox haven’t been seen as big players of high-profile free agents in recent years. All indicators this offseason seem to point to a turnaround.
The reigning Yankees and crosstown Mets are still seen by many as the favorites to win the Soto bid, once official offers start rolling in. So far, it does not appear that the process has reached that point. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that the Yankees are free to go 13 years and older Aaron is the judgeA $40MM annual salary to keep Soto, puts his base comfort level somewhere in the $520MM total. Most expect Soto to surpass that mark by a fair margin, but it’s a remarkable start all the same.
Meanwhile, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet looks into the Blue Jays’ interest in Soto, noting that as it was in . Shohei Ohtani last season, ownership saw him as different from any other offseason budget plans. Toronto’s pursuit of Soto is no indication that if the Jays miss out on a star slugger, they will go around and spend $500-700MM elsewhere in free agency. In his aforementioned column, Heyman doubled down on earlier reports that the Blue Jays plan to be aggressive in their pursuit of Soto.
Not so with all his prospective suitors. ESPN’s Jeff Passan wrote this week that the Dodgers “won’t be chasing Soto,” as they have committed nine more years to Ohtani and thus prevent them if Soto ends up needing to spend more time in the designated hitter. They will be opportunistic and perhaps jump into the fray if the market doesn’t improve the way Soto hopes, though that seems unlikely, given the strong demand for his services and the potential Bronx-versus-Queens bidding war.
Until last winter, with Ohtani once Yoshinobu Yamamotoit was the way Los Angeles approached the market under baseball president Andrew Friedman. While they often featured one of the game’s biggest franchises and star-studded rosters, much of the Dodgers’ star power over the years has been available on the trade market (eg. Mookie Betts, Tyler Glasnow) or internally developed (eg Will Smith, Clayton Kershaw, Corey Seager before his free movement). Freddie Freeman was the only free agent acquisition, and entered the boat with a deferred agreement after a long stay on the open market. That scenario probably won’t happen with Soto.
As it stands, there is no expected timetable for when Soto might reach a decision or when an offer might be presented in earnest. The fact that the Red Sox didn’t even enter the numbers speaks to the early stages of the bidding process. It’s always possible that Soto could decide he wants to speed up the process and have a team at the end of the month, but a decision sometime in December sounds better.
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