Scott Boras on Juan Soto's eventual next team: 'Juan loves winning'

SAN ANTONIO – Juan Soto didn’t provide much for those inclined to read tea leaves throughout 2024 when it came to commenting about his impending free agency.

Nor did his agent, Scott Boras.

Though the agent to the stars, who held his annual gathering with reporters at the general managers meetings late Wednesday morning – a get-together that is always part press conference, part performance art – did make clear Soto’s affinity for the one year he spent in pinstripes.

“I think that playing in New York for Juan was really, really comfortable,” Boras said. “He really, really enjoyed his teammates, the Yankee experience.”

And that concluded the Yankees love-fest portion of the nearly hour-long media session, Boras’ remarks about Soto’s season in the Bronx reflecting what the player himself said about it.

Yes, he liked playing for the Yankees. And, yes, the 26-year-old very much looked forward to seeing what was out there in free agency.

“Definitely I’ll be open to every single team,” Soto said after the Yankees' loss to the Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series. “I don’t have any doors closed or anything like that. I’m going to be available for all 30 teams.”

And Boras made clear, and this matches the industry expectation, there will be plenty of options out there, with Soto’s priority being “winning.”

And the chance to do so every year.

“Juan loves winning,” Boras said. “Juan Soto wants ownership that he knows is going to support an opportunity to win annually . . . his focus always was, ‘I want to know who my owner is, I want to know that we’re going to be able to win, and I want to know that, besides me, there’s going to be a great number of support on the part of the owner, that he has the same desire to win that I do. And that I’m going to commit my career to it, and I want the owner to commit his resources to it.’ And that’s really why Juan Soto became a free agent."

Boras, who met with Yankees general manager Brian Cashman on the first day of these meetings, said he already has gotten “a lot of interest” from different clubs regarding Soto, whom the industry collectively believes will get a contract in the $500 to $600 million range. It could surpass that depending on which big-money teams are involved in the bidding.

Boras said he had no timetable for when he expects Soto to sign – beyond saying “it’s going to be a very thorough process.” He did say one element of that process will the outfielder sitting down face-to-face with the owner of any interested club.

Soto, of course, already is familiar with Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner and eventually will sit with him again.

“A lot of this is knowing about the future,” Boras said. “I think Juan knows who the Yankees are, he’s certainly very impressed and pleased . . . he went to the World Series with them, which is a tremendous feat. But to really know what ownership thinks and what the plan is of the Yankees for the future, I think any player in his situation would certainly want to hear that. And certainly with the respect he has for the New York Yankees, I know he’s going to want to be very thorough.”

Among the owners Soto will meet with too, of course, is the Mets’ Steve Cohen, baseball’s wealthiest owner with an estimated worth of $21.03 billion, according to Forbes, who has shown a propensity to spend since taking over his childhood team.

“I think the Mets are obviously trying to get to their goal, which is winning a world championship, and I think they’ve been very clear about pursuing this aggressively in the market,” Boras said.

Though the Soto sweepstakes could end up as an intra-city battle between the Yankees and Mets, there will be many others included, at least at the outset. And, according to Boras, there should be based on Soto’s age, standing as one of the best in the game and the opportunity for whatever franchise lands him to reap the benefits of that.

“You have something that no one else has in the player community and the talent arena, you have the jewel, you have the Mona Lisa of the museum, you have the attraction, you also have somebody that allows for owners to win repeatedly,” Boras said. “And when owners win repeatedly, their revenues skyrocket. They develop the impact of postseason play, on attendance, on rights in the streaming world, what those rights may mean, all of those things are going to generate that [revenue]. Plus, the international branding of being one of the greats, and yet, he has literally 15 years more of his prime to offer.”