Juan Soto's free agency likely will take Yankees fans on a wild ride this offseason

Yankees fans, get ready for the roller-coaster ride of roller-coaster rides when it comes to Juan Soto’s free agency, which officially will begin soon.

Prepare to have your emotions buoyed with the latest “insider” information – plenty of which won’t be accurate – and those emotions brought crashing down with contrary “insider” information – plenty of which also won’t be accurate.

Prepare to experience those emotional swings, occasionally on the same day.

Prepare for rumors and the reports of rumors.

It will be that kind of winter.

And all that can be said for certain after the Yankees’ season came to an end with Wednesday night’s loss to the Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series is, to borrow the in-vogue phrase used to the point of cliché now in sports, “the process” will play out in full.

The end result certainly will be Soto signing one of the largest free agent deals, if not the largest, ever.

As Soto’s agent, Scott Boras, told three outlets that cover the Yankees, including Newsday, back in late May during a series against the Angels, players like Soto don’t come around often.

“When you represent players . . . I call ‘centurions,’ where you can say that they will be among the top 100 players to ever play this game, when you represent a centurion, you don’t worry about the cost of them to a franchise because they increase the franchise value of the team,” Boras said. “Therefore, the only cost you’re worrying about is what it costs to build the monument.”

Sounds pricey. And it will be.

For his part, Soto was as consistent with his performance answering questions about his impending free agency throughout the season as he was on the field.

Both were masterclasses in their own way.

Soto produced the best walk-year season of anyone not named Aaron Judge – who hit an AL-record 62 homers en route to capturing MVP honors in 2022, parlaying that into a nine-year, $360 million free agent deal. Soto this season had a steady-as-she goes year in which he hit .288 with 41 homers (a career-high), 109 RBIs and a .989 OPS. He was better in the postseason, hitting .327 with four homers and a 1.102 OPS in 14 games.

What about messaging? From Day 1 of spring training through Soto's final gathering with the media, which occurred following Wednesday night’s game, it was the same and can be boiled down to this:

We’ll see what happens.

All of Soto’s comments relating to the topic have received Zapruder Film-like examination, as have some of his on-field actions, such as him, the last to leave the home dugout after Wednesday’s loss, pointing to the sky.

It had to mean something, even though Soto points skyward with regularity, including before games or after big hits.

Soto’s postgame comments Wednesday received outsized attention, especially when he was asked if the Yankees, with whom he clearly enjoyed playing, has an “advantage.”

“I don’t want to say anybody has any advantage, because at the end of the day, we’re going to look at what they have and how much they want me,” Soto said.

Those reacting to that remark, and Soto’s other appropriately detached remarks about free agency, are forgetting similar comments from Judge after the final game of 2022, a Game 4 ALCS loss to the Astros.

“I’m a free agent and we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Going back to the 2022 season opener against the Red Sox, after Judge turned down a seven-year, $213.5 million extension offer, the outfielder caused his share of palpitations in the Yankees universe by saying: “I don’t mind going to free agency …At the end of the year, I’ll talk to 30 teams.”

See how this works?

Players, especially the biggest stars, and especially Boras clients – often one in the same – are necessarily businessmen when it comes to dollars and cents.

Cards are played close to the vest with their public comments.

Those wistful for the halcyon days of Joe DiMaggio’s “I'd like to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee” are remembering things as they never were.

Because had free agency existed in DiMaggio’s time, rest assured the Yankee Clipper would have after, say, his sixth big-league season in 1941 when he hit .357 with a 1.083 OPS in winning the second of his three career MVPs, thanked the good Lord for making him a part of another organization had the Yankees failed to pony up.

And so, Soto, who turned26 during the World Series, heads into free agency open to whomever will pony up what the industry expects will be a total package in the range of $500-$600 million, the final number maybe even exceeding that.

Only a handful of teams are willing to play on that financial field, the Yankees, naturally being one. But so are Steve Cohen’s Mets. As well as the Giants – who nearly pried Judge away two years ago – Phillies, Dodgers and maybe even the Nationals, Soto’s first team.

Get ready, too, to read/hear about a “mystery team” or two plunging in, regardless of whether they truly exist. It’s all part of it.

Time to ride the ride.