Juan Soto wants to 'grow a dynasty' with the Mets
On the first day of Juan Soto’s new life with the Mets, part-news conference and part-celebration on a cold but bright Thursday afternoon at Citi Field, one of his bosses revealed that the origins of their union traced back to long before the actual signing of his 15-year, $765 million contract.
Before the sides agreed to those record terms Sunday night, before they got together at Steve Cohen’s Beverly Hills mansion in mid-November, before Mets personnel began preparing their wooing/recruitment materials in August amid a playoff push, Cohen and David Stearns met for the first time in the summer of 2023.
They were strangers. Cohen was looking for a trustworthy, accomplished and far more permanent president of baseball operations. Stearns was open to running a team again after a year off the grind.
In their early conversations — the hiring process — Cohen painted a picture of his vision for the organization, how he wanted to transform the Mets from punch line to paragon of success.
That vision included Soto.
“We did know that if he was going to be a free agent,” Stearns said, “we were going to make a very strong push.”
They pushed him all the way to the dais in the Piazza Club — named after one of the most iconic Mets ever, a player whose accomplishments the Mets hope Soto far exceeds — in an upper level of Soto’s home ballpark, a room filled with the Soto and Cohen families, dozens of reporters and hundreds of Mets employees, who applauded as Soto walked in.
Stearns described Soto as a player on a Hall of Fame track and called the occasion “a special day for our organization.” Cohen said it “accelerates our goal of winning championships” — yes, plural.
After Soto, 26, flanked by agent Scott Boras on his left and Stearns and Cohen on his right, buttoned his blue-pinstriped No. 22 Mets jersey, he said he picked this team to “try to grow a dynasty.”
“What you were seeing from the other side was unbelievable,” said Soto, who played against the Mets with the Yankees, Padres and Nationals in recent seasons. “And the vibes and everything on the field, and the future that this team has, has a lot to do with my decision.”
The money had the most to do with it, of course, but a monthlong courtship was the Mets’ most important pitch of the year — a year in which they fell two wins shy of the World Series.
Cohen brought his father-in-law — Ralph, a Mets fan since long before his daughter Alex married Steve more than three decades ago — to their initial meeting in Los Angeles. The Mets offered an overview of their team, farm system, processes. One of Cohen’s sons, Josh, created a video that Soto said was his “favorite part” of the presentation; it showed a version of the future featuring a Soto statue outside Citi Field next to the real-life Tom Seaver statue.
All that happened at Cohen’s place in Los Angeles, at his request.
“We’re going to some restaurant, I didn’t know what the atmosphere would be,” Cohen said. “Food’s better at my house.”
When Boras asked about his longevity, Cohen confirmed that he is committed to owning the Mets for the duration of Soto’s contract, at the end of which Cohen will be 83 years old. When Soto asked how many World Series he wants to win in the next decade, Cohen said “two to four.”
“I wanted to get a point to him that we’re good people, that we care, that we want to win a championship. That I’m always successful,” Cohen said. “I wanted him to see, my father-in-law is at every home game. I wanted him to see how important baseball is to this family. Alex grew up with one TV in her apartment, and that Met game was on every night.”
The Mets weren’t alone, though. Soto and Boras maintained that all five finalists — also the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Dodgers — stayed competitive throughout.
As Soto mulled his choices and the cost climbed, Cohen, the richest owner in baseball, had doubts that the Mets would win. He was willing to pay, though, even if he didn’t love it.
“One thing I learned a long time ago: If you want something that’s amazing, it’s going to be uncomfortable,” he said. “It’s never going to be comfortable. So I always stretch a little bit because I know that’s what it takes to get it done . . . To get a player of this caliber is really unusual, so again, you’ve got to step a little further than you expect.”
Boras, the most famous and influential agent in baseball, said: “The demand for Juan Soto exceeded the demand for any player I’ve represented before in this atmosphere of totality of contract. I’ve had general managers tell me that if Juan Soto is in our division, I’m going to spend less, because I have lesser of a chance to win. If he’s not in our division, I’m going to spend more, because we have a greater chance to win.”
Soto’s contract is the largest in the history of North American professional sports. He more than doubled the previous biggest Mets deal (Francisco Lindor’s $341 million).
“It’s weird because you’re trying to adjust to, wow, this is a big number,” Cohen said. “Does this make sense? There was enough time, I could think pretty well on my feet and adjust pretty quickly — that’s what I do for a living in the [stock] markets. I always say: I don’t create the world, I’ve got to live in the world being created around me. I wasn’t the only bidder. That was the market. Lucky enough, he chose us.”
And so Soto did, just as Cohen and Stearns dreamed when his theoretical free agency was but a twinkle in their eye before Stearns even took the job.
“We talked about some of the generational players in our game and the difficulty of accessing some of those generational players,” Stearns said. “And certainly Juan is one of them.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
