Juan Soto, Mets agree to 15-year, $765 million deal, sources say
Juan Soto of the Yankees reacts after his third-inning RBI double against the St. Louis Cardinals at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 30. Credit: Jim McIsaac
DALLAS — In a landmark deal for the team and for baseball, the Mets and superstar outfielder Juan Soto agreed to a 15-year, $765 million contract Sunday night, people familiar with the terms said, the richest guarantee for one player in the history of North American professional sports.
The Soto sweepstakes reached its climax just as the baseball world descended upon the Hilton Anatole, site of the annual winter meetings set to officially begin Monday, with the Mets luring him away from the incumbent Yankees and also beating out the Red Sox, Blue Jays and Dodgers.
In the end, multibillionaire Steve Cohen — the richest owner in baseball, who turned his Wall Street fortune into a massive because-he-can art collection and, in late 2020, ownership of the Mets — would not be denied, driving the bidding to unprecedented totals, well beyond projections entering the offseason.
For as much as he has transformed the Mets over the past four years — overhauling the front office more than once, remaking the business operation, actually qualifying for the playoffs in two of the past three seasons — no other change figures to have the on-field impact of signing Soto.
Soto, 26, is considered by peers to be one of the absolute best of the best, his early career success putting him on a strong Hall of Fame track. Scott Boras, his agent, described him as “the Mona Lisa” of free agents. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman last month called him “a generational-type talent.”
And now Soto is a Met. The best free agent of the offseason is coming to Queens.
Soto’s contract blows away the previous record, set just last offseason by the Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani: $700 million across 10 years. And $680 of that is deferred until after the contract expires, lowering the present-day value of the deal in the eyes of MLB and the players’ union to about $450 million.
The previous largest contract in Mets history had been Francisco Lindor’s 10-year, $341 million deal, agreed to on the eve of the 2021 season. This is well more than double that.
Among the other details of Soto’s monumental pact:
* His average annual salary of $51 million also is a baseball record.
* None of the money is deferred.
* He will receive a $75 million signing bonus.
* He has an opt-out clause after the fifth season (2029). That will allow him to hit free agency again as a 31-year-old if he wants. The Mets can void his opt-out, however, by adding an extra $4 million per year for the final 10 seasons.
* The 15-year term also is the longest in baseball history. The Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. (14 years) had held that mark.
The Mets add one of the best bats in baseball (even if Soto is considered a mediocre defender who might shift to first base at some point). Across seven seasons with the Nationals, Padres and Yankees, he is a career .285 hitter with a .421 OBP and .532 slugging percentage. The five-time All-Star has won a World Series (in 2019 with Washington), five Silver Slugger awards, a batting title and a Home Run Derby. He has finished in the top six in MVP voting four times, including third with the Yankees in 2024.
Soto’s production is one of the primary reasons he fetched so much money. Another: At 26, he is far younger than most elite batters when they reach free agency.
Because Soto was such a prodigy — making his major-league debut at 19 in 2018 — he hit the open market at a point in his career when potentially most of his prime is still ahead of him. In an era when teams prefer to pay based on expected future performance, not past performance, the Mets get Soto when his best years may be yet to come.
If he maintains over the life of his contract the home run pace from his first five full seasons, he would be at 699. Only four players have gotten to 700.
Soto has the potential to become one of the best ever — and the Mets just bought perhaps the rest of this career. If he is enshrined in Cooperstown someday, it very probably will be with a Mets logo on his cap.
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.
