Matrix taking shape for baseball's future

On the eve of Opening Day 2025, you  literally can see baseball’s future in Juan Soto. If nothing else, the so-called “generational talent,” signed by the Mets in December to a record $765 million contract lasting 15 years, is going to have a career that nearly spans one generation to the next.

But there are other aspects to Soto that make him a virtual time capsule for where the game already is — and where it’s headed at warp speed. Signed out of the Dominican Republic at age 16, Soto made his major-league debut five months shy of his 20th birthday, a nod to baseball’s growing rush to develop and promote budding stars as soon as possible.

There is Soto’s uncanny, machine-like read of the strike zone, an increasingly valuable tool as MLB’s own robots are being implemented to police the plate. Which then leads to his peerless ability to get on base, as Soto’s .421 OBP is the sport’s best since 2018, the year he broke in with the Nationals (Mike Trout’s .411 is second, followed by Aaron Judge at .407).

And, of course, that contract. By stretching the financial horizons of what anyone thought was possible, going where no man has gone before in surpassing Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal from a year earlier, Soto has paved a golden path for baseball’s first $1 billion player, if not provided the blueprint.

“I think when you open up the MLB library, they don’t exactly give you market tops,” Scott Boras, the agent for Soto, said earlier this offseason. “It’s kind of our job to create markers, dynamics, studies. Fortunately for me, with the first 50- or 100- or 250-million-dollar contract — and now [Soto] — you have to really assess what the equities of the market are.

“And you always know it’s a good business decision, particularly in this case, because so many teams were willing to make offers in this area. Because the surplus value of Juan Soto is so extreme, it’s well over a billion dollars. They knew that this is a rare opportunity. That’s why I call Juan the Centurion, because there aren’t many in a century that really equate to value in the manner that he does.”

What does that mean for baseball’s next 100 years? That’s too big a number to even imagine, never mind analyze. And in this data-driven era, with AI ripping the steering wheel out of our hands, who knows with any degree of certainty where baseball will be a decade from now?

Under the stewardship of commissioner Rob Manfred, baseball’s decision-makers have shown a willingness to try almost anything to yank this tradition-laden sport into the 21st century. And those efforts have accelerated in recent years with the number of rule changes — primarily the universal DH, replay review, the pitch clock, the infield-shift ban, PitchCom (to foil sign-stealing), larger bases and the implementation of the automatic runner to help curtail extra innings.

By MLB’s standards, those long-overdue adjustments still were considered revolutionary upon their arrival. There are more on the way, mostly pertaining to the technological side, and we witnessed it firsthand during the spring training audition of the automated ball-strike (ABS) challenge system. This represented the sport’s first concession to its robot overlords — with a full-time handover of the strike zone looming on the horizon — but nothing ever vaults into the future without some growing pains first.

Or pushback, as Yankees manager Aaron Boone bluntly put it: “I do not like this.”

Part of the problem, at least in management’s view, is turning so much of the game’s strategy-making process over to the players. Because only the pitcher, hitter or catcher can signal for a challenge, that can lead to some emotionally rash decisions in the moment rather than the cooler heads behind the replay-review procedure.

Again, this fear of the unknown comes with exploring new frontiers. But baseball is discovering that this next generation of players — the ones that grew up with iPhones in their back pockets, if not their cribs — is fine diving into the next update or upgrade. With the landscape constantly changing around them, why wouldn’t baseball do that, too? The ABS challenge system illustrates that merger of tech and tradition.

“It could be really exciting going into the future,” Mets slugger Pete Alonso said.

For baseball, a history-obsessed sport that constantly looks backwards, that future can be a scary place, especially when people start talking about the game’s evolution. We’ve already seen technology’s impact on evaluating players through analytics, with every ballpark, through each rung of the minor-league levels, wired with cameras and other data-collecting devices. During workouts and even games, players are strapped with wearable tech that measures everything from sprint speed to their aggregate physical exertion — the latter then used by managers to determine whether someone needs a day off.

What could be next? “Smart” bats that register swing speed and launch angle with each pitch, allowing a hitter to modify accordingly? Or maybe heads-up displays on a catcher’s sun visor, like a fighter pilot, giving him data on every fastball, slider or changeup? The concept of PitchCom existed for more than a decade before baseball finally got those transmitters in their ears of the players, effectively wiping out the cheating that blew up with the Astros’ trash-can-banging march to the 2017 World Series title. The possibilities for more on-field tech are endless.

But the game’s future isn’t predicated merely on space-age advances going from the laboratory to the batter’s box. It’s still played by humans, and Soto’s “generational” impact is part of a ground-breaking series. Ohtani’s two-way stardom is almost certain to create a next wave of young players who want to both hit and pitch after their high school careers. As more women rise to high-level positions in  the front office and coaching ranks, it’s logical to think that someday those who follow could push to play in the majors as well.

Sound far-fetched? People once said that about making phone calls on your wristwatch. Or pitchers using a keypad on their belt for signs. Or a $765 million player.

The future, even for baseball, gets here faster than you think.

10 things we could see in the future

No other sport is so beholden to its history like baseball, which explains why the national pastime has such an uneasy relationship with the future — always walking a tightrope between tradition and technology. But after decades of updates moving at a glacial pace, we’ve seen the pace accelerate in recent years, and that could increase to warp speed over the coming years. With that in mind, here’s a glimpse into an MLB galaxy that might not be very far away.

1. The $1 billion player. File this under not-too-distant future. Since Juan Soto just set the record at $765 million, only a year after Shohei Ohtani’s landmark $700 million deal, this could be happening sooner rather than later. One potential hurdle could be the restructuring of player compensation — i.e. salary caps — when this current CBA expires after the 2026 season.

2. The (inter) national pastime. MLB has been eyeing more foreign franchises ever since the Montreal Expos were founded in 1969 (the Blue Jays became the second Canadian team in 1976). The top targets? Mexico City, London and perhaps even Tokyo or Seoul, though the Asian locales would require some creative travel scheduling.

3. Out of their leagues. Tinkering with divisional alignments is nothing new. It happens with every expansion. The Brewers and Astros even switched leagues. As soon as MLB expands again, however, expect a major reshuffling, with 16 teams in each league and four divisions of four teams each, arranged geographically for ease of travel. Think of a Northeast that includes the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and Blue Jays.

4. (Wo) men on base. Before too long, will it really be that revolutionary for baseball to become a co-ed league? Although softball used to be the ceiling for women, they’re already working in MLB at every level, from the front office through the coaching and development ranks. Breaking into the batter’s box only requires one more giant leap.

5. Citi Connect uniforms. Not a misprint. Expect sponsorship patches and helmet decals to grow exponentially in the coming years as MLB tries to pump up the flow of that revenue spigot. There’s just too much free space on today’s current jerseys. Think of soccer’s Premier League, which has the sponsor as the dominant theme of their uniforms.

6. Take me into the ballgame. Advances in AI and virtual reality tech will have the ability to recreate a life-like stadium experience right in your living room, whether from a front- row seat, crouching in the catcher’s spot or standing at shortstop. Why settle for the spectator experience when you can share the sensation of turning a double play or homering off a Cy Young winner? For additional cost, of course.

7. Enter the robots. Now that MLB has dipped its toe into the robo-ump pool with the spring-training audition of the challenge system, they’ll go with that first — probably in 2026 — before eventually going full-robot for the strike zone once that tech is perfected. With more AI advancement, “robots” could be used to make just about every call, with more cameras and drones scanning every inch of the field.

8. The Mariners will play in a World Series. We won’t say when, but as the only team to never appear in a Fall Classic, over their 47-year existence, it has to happen someday, right? Only four other clubs don’t have a World Series title on their resume: the Brewers, Rockies, Rays and Padres.

9. Ready for launch? Babe Ruth is credited with MLB’s longest home run, a 575-foot blast way back in 1921 — nearly a century before the introduction of Statcast — and legend has it that Negro League star Josh Gibson once smacked a 600-footer. With MLB always angling for more offense, and no desire to deaden the baseball, we should have a new longest-drive champion at some point.

10. And finally, a salary cap. Or some kind of financial restructuring method to level the playing field to help distribute the game’s biggest stars throughout the league. It’s not that some owners can’t afford to spend more — they don’t want to based on their revenue streams, and that turns those markets virtually invisible as far as TV ratings and attendance. The imbalance can’t continue if MLB plans to thrive for the next millennium.

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.