Juan Soto's signing moves Mets to center stage
Mets' Juan Soto poses at Citi Field on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp
Even with Juan Soto’s freshly-minted $765 million contract, he’s still not in Steve Cohen’s league when it comes to personal fortune. Then again, from a baseball standpoint, no one else is either.
But the two richest Mets, and new teammates, already seem like they’ve belonged together, kindred spirits from the early stages of Soto’s free-agent negotiations. During Thursday’s intro at Citi Field -- fittingly placed in the Mike Piazza club -- Cohen recalled sitting with the free agent at one of their recruiting lunches when Soto cut right to the chase, asking the Mets owner how many championships he’d like to win over the next decade.
Some might have hedged their response. But Cohen has made his billions by boldly predicting the future, only with market trends rather than roster building, so he didn’t shy away from suggesting that Soto would be part of Flushing’s dynasty-in-the-making.
“I said I’d like to win two to four,” Cohen replied.
Don’t think for a second that Cohen’s settling for a pair of World Series titles during that span, especially after giving Soto the richest contract in North American pro sports. And knowing the ultra-competitive Soto, who dumped the Yankees after this October’s World Series run -- incredibly he hasn’t spoken to a single teammate since the final out of Game 5 -- the goal is to get rings for every finger.
“I feel that’s what it’s all about,” Soto said. “I think that’s what you play baseball for -- to be a championship player and try to win as many as you can. At the end of the day, you can have all the stuff and everything, but if you don’t win, it’s kind of hard. So I feel like that’s what I want to do. I want to have the best chances to win every year and try to win as many World Series as I can.”
In swiping Soto from the Yankees, the Mets just bagged one their biggest Ws in franchise history, right below the ’69 and ’86 titles. Think about it in terms of what each seminal event did for Flushing’s expansion outfit in trying to earn respect and steal attention from New York’s pinstriped bully across town.
The Mets didn’t drive Soto through the Canyon of Heroes for Thursday’s commute, but they’ve been on a deserving victory lap since Cohen closed the deal Sunday night, and the team probably could’ve sold out Citi Field if they had allowed fans to his unveiling. As it was, the Piazza Club was standing room only, with barely any room for another body to squeeze in.
With Soto on board, the Mets -- whether they acknowledge it or not -- are nudging the Yankees off center stage, sticking them with a dimmer share of the city’s spotlight. That’s just how it is. Only one team gets to be New York’s No. 1 at any particular time, and by closing the Soto deal Cohen currently has the Mets on the city’s throne. And he has no designs on relinquishing it, despite his diplomatic approach to Thursday’s questions about interborough conquest.
“My view is this is such a big city, there’s plenty of room for both of us,” Cohen said. “I’ll let the fans determine that.”
When someone repeated back to Cohen his desire for multiple championships, and reminded him the Yankees are an obstacle toward that goal, the Mets owner deflected by saying they’re in the American League. It was the Dodgers he’d run into first, and they’re “equally formidable,” Cohen said.
But the Mets don’t play 12 miles down the road from the Dodgers, or battle for the same TV ratings, or have families feuding over team allegiances. Taking Soto from the Yankees, in the public perception, was akin to an act of war among the fan bases, and Soto came off as the perfect $765 million mercenary.
“I’d say the demand for Juan Soto exceeded the demand for any player I represented before in this atmosphere of totality of contract,” said his agent, Scott Boras, who’s negotiated more gargantuan deals than anyone in the sport’s history. “I’ve had general managers tell me that if Juan Soto is in our division, I’m going to spend less, because I have a lesser chance to win.”
Now that Cohen has Soto, it feels like handing him a record contract has only whetted the owner’s appetite to spend more. Remember, it was Cohen who mentioned a three-to-five year window to win a World Series when he first bought the Mets in 2020, so he just greatly upped his odds of narrowly beating that deadline by bringing Soto to Flushing. And he still has another 14 years beyond that, with the expectation that Soto will have plenty of high-priced company along the way.
The mere sight of Soto slipping on a Mets jersey Thursday was a monumental occasion for the franchise. Soto received loud applause from the dozens of team employees as he walked into the Piazza Club, and there was more cheering as he posed in his new uniform.
“It just looks right,” said co-owner Alex Cohen, who sat front-and-center amongst Soto’s family.
We’d say the same about the Steve Cohen-Juan Soto partnership. Two Mets who stopped at nothing to get what they wanted the past six weeks. That’s how the other New York team used to operate -- before the Yankees had Cohen to contend with.
“I don’t see it as a Yankees-Mets thing,” said manager Carlos Mendoza, who once benefitted from Hal Steinbrenner snapping up the costliest free agents. “I see it as this is a first-class organization and we are able to get anybody.”
Not just anybody. Juan Soto. The championships -- plural -- come next.
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.
