In a month or two, Juan Soto is going to sign a piece of paper and become an incredibly rich man. However, we do not know if this new wealth will break records.
Shohei Ohtani currently holds the largest contract in sports history with the 10-year, $700 million contract he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers a year ago. This deal not only broke Mike Trout’s record for baseball money, it surpassed it by nine figures. A full contract for Nolan Arenado could match the distance between Ohtani’s deal money and Trout’s $426 million.
Soto was long destined to land the next mega-contract when the star outfielder entered free agency this offseason, but Ohtani’s deal now looms over negotiations. Will Soto be able to come close to the deal that had the baseball world gasping, or will Ohtani’s deal remain an exception?
Here’s what you need to know about what Soto has going for him and why his case is different from Ohtani’s. Both players are elite hitters, and that’s about where the similarities end.
Will: Age is just a number, but it’s a very important number here
That might be a bit surprising given that Soto and Ohtani both made their MLB debuts in 2018, but Soto, 26, is more than three years younger than Ohtani at the time of his own free agency. Ohtani rose to fame in Japan, then joined the MLB at the age of 23, while Soto rose through the ranks of the Washington Nationals’ minor league system as a teenager.
That three-year gap is important, because that’s three extra years of premium a Soto bidder will get if they win.
Let’s do an exercise. We won’t pretend that Soto can match Ohtani’s average annual value of $70 million (and we’ll see later why that number is misleading). Instead, let’s look at the second-highest average annual value a player received: Aaron Judge’s $40 million ($360 million over nine years). It’s been a few years since Judge signed this deal, so let’s add $5 million and say Soto could get $45 million per year. It’s a big hand gesture, but we’re in a hurry here.
Now consider that Judge is signed through his age 39 season. We could also look at Soto’s similarity score on Baseball reference and seeing his most similar hitter in his age-25 season, who has already played a full career, is Hall of Famer Frank Robinson. According to OPS+, Robinson remained an above-average hitter until his retirement at age 40.
We’re doing some guesswork for a very complicated process, but paying Soto $45 million through his age 40 season gives you a 15-year, $675 million contract. Add another year and he passed Ohtani.
It would be the longest contract in MLB history, surpassing Fernando Tatis Jr.’s 14-year, $340 million contract, but it’s what becomes more possible when you reach free agency at the Soto’s age.
Won’t do it: Try imagining selling Scott Boras on postponements
The problem with comparisons to Ohtani’s contract is that the $700 million is somewhat of a lie.
Yes, when Ohtani’s salaries from this contract are added together, they will total $700 million. However, as most fans know, Ohtani isn’t getting that $700 million in the usual way. He deferred $680 million of that money until the end of the contract.
Due to inflation, this means Ohtani will not receive a $700 million value as we currently understand it. MLB is treating the deal as a 10-year, $460 million contract, which seems quite reasonable compared to Trout’s previous record.
Here’s the problem, though: Ohtani wanted these postponements. He I brought him to the table with the Dodgerswho eagerly agreed, because every company in the world would happily defer the pay of their highest-paid employees for a decade if they were allowed to.
Now let’s remember that Soto uses the services of Scott Boras, the person you hire when you want the number on your contract to be as high as possible. Chances are Soto and Boras won’t be interested in replicating Ohtani’s generosity, meaning teams won’t get the deal Ohtani offered the Dodgers.
Will: A bidding war between New York teams is a good place to be
Forget who did and didn’t make the World Series, the biggest winner from the trade that sent Soto from the San Diego Padres to the New York Yankees might have been Soto.
By joining the Yankees a year before his free agency, he became something the Yankees could lose. Much has been made of the fact that the Yankees had a year to sell Soto on what he could accomplish in the Bronx, but the opposite is also true. Soto helped the Yankees advance to the World Series in his first year in pinstripes, and now the team faces the possibility of having to get there again without him.
Fans wouldn’t like that, especially considering who else is in the running. THE three other teams that have dates with Soto this week are two of the Yankees’ division rivals, the Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays, as well as their crosstown rival, the New York Mets.
The Mets are the more intriguing option because a) they have Steve Cohen, the richest owner in baseball and b) Cohen has made it clear that he doesn’t care how profitable his team is if they win.
The baseball world knew for years that if the Yankees really wanted a free agent, they would get that free agent. The Mets have an opportunity to declare loud and clear that this is no longer true. The best possible outcome for Soto’s bank account is for emotions to come into play while Cohen and the Steinbrenner family make offers, and that’s where the situation appears to be evolving.
Won’t do it: Ohtani didn’t get paid just because he was good at baseball
By signing Juan Soto, you will get a great baseball player. The signing of Shohei Ohtani gave the Dodgers an international icon, as well as a baseball great.
There may be a more delicate way to say this, but Ohtani’s fame is different from Soto’s. Soto might be the second coming of Ted Williams, but Ohtani is the national hero of the world’s third-richest country. Every Japanese company would like to be associated with Ohtani, and that’s why the business side of the Dodgers wouldn’t have batted an eyelid when told about a potential $700 million spend.
Through sponsorships and advertisements, the Dodgers have already made tens of millions of dollars employing Ohtani (or even $120 million, if AJ Pierzynski is to be believed). That’s the money Ohtani brings in before he swings a bat, not to mention the financial boost the Dodgers got from winning the World Series.
Soto does not offer this built-in revenue stream. He will certainly help your team win and attract fans, but it’s hard to overstate the magnitude of the internationally renowned gap between Ohtani and the rest of the world’s baseball players.
Will: Soto is one of the healthiest players in baseball
The easiest way for a contract to go south is for that player to be injury prone. This is more common among pitchers, but we’ve also seen it with Ken Griffey Jr. and Mark Teixeira.
If Soto’s career thus far is any indication, teams probably don’t have much to fear in that regard. Since making his first Opening Day appearance in 2019, Soto has not missed more than 13 games in a single season. He’s also a guy who doesn’t rely on tools that might degrade with age. His best tool, plate discipline, is known to age well.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers are hoping Ohtani’s second UCL surgery goes well, or they’ll lose what made him the greatest two-way player the game has ever seen. But on the other hand…
Won’t do it: Ohtani does more things well than Soto
If you’re betting on a guy who will be great into his 30s, it stands to reason that you want to bet on the guy who does more things well than any other player in baseball. This guy is Ohtani.
Even though Ohtani is no longer the pitcher he once was, the Dodgers would have I wanted him more for his bat anyway. Then he went ahead and became one of the best baserunners in baseball, posting the first 50-50 season in MLB history.
And let’s not forget that Ohtani occasionally played on the field in Japan. With his speed and arm strength, it’s entirely conceivable that he could become a good outfielder again if throwing is no longer an option. He wouldn’t be the first Dodger superstar to change positions for the good of the team.
We don’t know what Ohtani’s game will look like when he’s 39, but he’ll probably still be valuable. Meanwhile, Soto’s value is entirely focused on his bat. He’s not a good baserunner and he’s not a good defender.
Which contract number Soto ends up releasing will be important to the rest of MLB. It’s hard not to view Ohtani’s contract as the ceiling of all possible deals for the foreseeable future, much like Alex Rodriguez once did with his then-upsetting $252 million pact with the Texas Rangers in 2001, but Soto may push back on that narrative this winter.
At the very least, Soto appears poised to surpass Ohtani when it comes to actual contract value, but that could be as much due to Ohtani’s choices as Soto’s value.
