After years of elite production amid career instability, Juan Soto has found his permanent home – thanks to a stupendous and record-setting contract commitment from the New York Mets.
Soto and the New York Mets agreed to a 15-year, $765 million contract Sunday night, the biggest contract in sports history and making Soto the highest-paid player in baseball by almost every measure.
A person with direct knowledge of the agreement confirmed to USA TODAY Sports that Soto and the Mets came to terms. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal is not yet finalized.
The total and current value of his contract exceeds that of two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, who signed a heavily-deferred 10-year, $700 million deal with the Dodgers one year ago. Soto’s $51 million average annual value is a record for a baseball player, as it contains no deferred money.
Soto’s departure from the crosstown Yankees to the Mets represents a massive commitment from owner Steve Cohen, ending his tenure in the Bronx after one season that culminated in a World Series appearance. The Yankees, according to a person familiar with the negotiations, offered $760 million for 16 years, close in total value but with an average annual of $47.5 million.
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Now, unless Soto exercises his right to opt out of the contract after 2029, he will put his significant talents on display in Flushing past his 40th birthday.
Soto, 26, was in high demand from Major League Baseball’s usual coterie of big-revenue, big-spending teams, and the Yankees had at least the advantage of familiarity after Soto’s one year in the Bronx resulted in 41 home runs, a .989 OPS and a run to their first World Series appearance since 2009.
But as the process wound down, the Mets stepped forward and separated themselves from a pack that included the Yankees and Boston Red Sox to secure one of the game’s great all-time hitters and playoff performers.
Soto debuted at 19 and by 26 has already played in two World Series and three league championship series – and has performed excellently in October. He’s a career .281 hitter with a .927 OPS and 11 home runs in 43 postseason games – including the pennant-clinching shot for the Yankees at Cleveland in Game 5 of the ALCS.
His performance on the biggest stages only burnishes his vast accomplishments within the game’s daily grind: Soto’s .421 on-base percentage leads active players, he has a .953 career OPS and has won a batting title, with a career .281 average.
That’s put him on a career track mirroring players either already in the Hall of Fame – such as Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Robinson and Mickey Mantle – or those who are near-locks to make it, such as his former Washington teammate Bryce Harper and Mike Trout.
BIGGEST CONTRACT IN MLB HISTORY: Juan Soto bet on himself. He got $765 million.
Yet for all his greatness, the Mets will be Soto’s fourth team in four seasons. After Soto led them to the 2019 World Series title, the Nationals digressed and found it more prudent to restructure on the back of a Soto trade and dealt him to San Diego in August 2022.
The Padres made a run to the 2022 NLCS but, after a lackluster 2023, needed to pare payroll and shipped Soto to the Yankees for four players. It was a true win-win: The Padres and Yankees were both playoff teams eliminated by the eventual champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
After that defeat, Soto proclaimed himself “available to all 30 teams,” which wasn’t exactly a harbinger of joy for the Yankees. The price tag kept climbing until the Mets met it.
And now, Soto may not have to relocate for quite some time.
Soto’s $51 million annual salary exceeds the present value of Ohtani’s deal, which the MLB Players’ Association valued at $46 million since $680 million of it is deferred. It’s rarefied air for a yearly salary, occupied only by the likes of Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry, whose current four-year, $215 million deal carries an average annual value of $53.8 million.
As for the Yankees? They stayed in the fight for Soto beyond what they might have considered rational, until, perhaps, it was clear they would not outbid Cohen. Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner met the demand when reigning MVP Aaron Judge hit free agency two years ago, and signed him to a nine-year, $360 million deal.
That commitment was rewarded when Judge won a second MVP this season. Yet Soto’s deal is more than twice the value of Judge’s, an almost unthinkable prospect just a couple years ago.
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