A $655 million deal?! A Yankees-Mets sweepstakes? MLB insiders predict Juan Soto's free agency (2024)

For three straight years, baseball has had a clear No. 1 free agent whose projected contract dominates conversations around the sport for months.

First, it was Aaron Judge in the midst of a 62-home run campaign. Then it was Shohei Ohtani, pitching and hitting his way to an unprecedented free agency frenzy.

Now it's Juan Soto's turn.

The slugger, who returned to the New York Yankees' lineup Monday night after missing three games with forearm inflammation, is having a career year in his first season in the Bronx. He won't turn 26 until October -- meaning plenty of length is on the table for his deal. And his agent is Scott Boras, who is set to negotiate the biggest contract of his career right after a season when many of his clients settled for shorter-term deals.

So we have one of the best hitters in the game (if not the best), currently playing for the most famous team in the sport, entering his prime years, and with MLB's most prominent agent leading the negotiations. Add it all up and baseball is set for another winter with a potentially record-breaking contract.

How much will Soto get? What record will he aim for in his deal? And which teams have the best chance of signing him? We polled 28 MLB executives, agents and insiders to find out what Soto's contract will look like this winter.

How much could Soto get?

Here are the 28 responses from our panel, grouped in tiers by total dollars.

Under $400 million (3): 1 year/$50 million, 8 years/$296 million, 10 years/$350 million

$400-$499 million (8): 10 years/$400 million, 10 years/$450 million, 11 years/$450 million, 12 years/$450 million, 13 years/$470 million, 12 years/$480 million (3x)

$500-599 million (14): 12 years/$500 million (2x), 13 years/$500 million (2x), 14 years/$500 million, 15 years/$500 million, 13 years/$502 million, 12 years/$510 million, 12 years/$525 million, 12 years/$528 million, 13 years/$540 million, 12 years/$550 million, 12 years/$552 million, 14 years/$588 million

At least $600 million (3): 14 years/$600 million, 12 years/$605 million, 10 years/$655 million

The average of all 28 projections is 11.6 years and $482.5 million, for a $41.4 million average annual value (AAV). There are four high outliers and four low outliers among our projections, so cutting those and averaging out the middle 20 might provide a more accurate snapshot:

Years: 12.4

Total guarantee: $498.4 million

AAV: $40.4 million

The median projection of those deals is 13 years, $500 million, and those numbers align with the industry consensus of the expectations for this contract right now.

A full half of the responders projected a number between $500 million and $599 million, with another three topping $600 million in their projections. That means 61% -- 17 of the 28 respondents -- believe Soto will get at least half a billion dollars from a team this winter. That would set a record for present-day value: Ohtani's 10-year deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers included so much deferred money that its NPV was $460 million.

(The clearest outlier of all our projections -- but genuine -- was a one-year, $50 million projection that came from someone in the sport who is reacting to Boras' perceived underperformance last winter and predicted it will happen again.)

The most common responses posited that, for the contract to be viewed as a success in the industry, the deal must best Judge's $40 million average annual value. Most insiders also say Boras will also shoot to beat Ohtani's deferral-adjusted AAV of just over $46 million (which is the official MLB figure used for competitive balance tax purposes). Beating the $460 million figure is another target, with $500 million in guarantees another commonly speculated benchmark.

With five months until Soto's free agency begins, this range of projections is a great starting point to dive into how teams will value the Yankees slugger when the offseason arrives -- and the factors that will ultimately shape the terms of his megadeal.

Who are the closest comps?

Finding comparable free agents from recent seasons is standard practice in the industry, but there simply aren't many players who match up with what Soto has accomplished since arriving in the majors as a 19-year-old in 2018.

Only Ohtani's deal with the Dodgers (unique for many reasons) and Mike Trout's 12-year, $426.5 million extension with the Los Angeles Angels (involving no other potential suitors) are clearly above the run of $300 million-plus contracts signed by Judge, Corey Seager, Gerrit Cole and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in recent offseasons -- but Soto should easily eclipse those latter deals.

Two players do stick out as a guide to Soto's free agency. In the 2018-19 winter, two elite position players hit free agency with excellent résumés at a very young age: Bryce Harper (a Boras client) and Manny Machado. Here's how Soto compares to those two superstars at the same points in their careers.

These two are by far the best comps for Soto, and at the very least show teams have been willing to commit to a contract spanning a decade or longer at a high AAV for a superstar position player, especially when that player happens to hit free agency at a young age.

But even those comparisons come with two obstacles for our evaluation purposes: Soto has already outperformed both Harper and Machado by a reasonable amount, and these deals were signed more than five years ago.

In an interview for this story, Boras pointed out the difficulty of trying to "place any form of barometer on them in a record revenue market." The plural in them refers to "centurion" players, a phrase he has been using to describe Soto as a player who will end up among the top 100 in the history of the sport.

What are the biggest market variables?

One could try some simple adjustments, like scaling the Machado and Harper deals proportionately to league revenue since 2019 and again for the gap in career WAR, but that's not how the market really works. Instead, it might be more instructive to explore the current market forces and psychology of the principals.

While it is unlikely that Soto's free agency will play out like that of Blake Snell or Cody Bellinger this past offseason -- an elite player settling for a short-term deal -- there is an important question raised by the most recent market: How many teams will be bidding competitively for Soto?

Last winter, some traditional big-spending teams (Yankees, Boston Red Sox, San Diego Padres, Washington Nationals, Texas Rangers and New York Mets) were notably out on many of the players looking for nine-figure deals, whether because they were rebuilding, focusing on efficiency, or pointing to the uncertainty created by the regional sports network crisis.

Boras says he is not concerned about the last factor impacting Soto's deal -- that teams are behaving like they will make more money as a result of the changes to broadcast rights, so the current TV deal questions shouldn't be an excuse to spend less. "MLB has given a clear and precise direction that they believe streaming values exceed the certainty of the existing RSN contracts," he said. (Though MLB's hope is to centralize streaming rights into a profitable business, it has told teams to prepare for short-term losses.)

This winter as a whole, and Soto's free agency in particular, will certainly provide a litmus test to that thinking. Will some of the teams who cut spending be willing to go not just into the nine figures, but record-setting territory with a $400 million or $500 million offer to Soto? The Dodgers paced spending last winter, committing a billion dollars to Ohtani and Yamamoto, but they likely won't do it again. Another team will have to step up -- but how many will and how eager will they be?

It's also worth noting that even in the down market last winter, there were plenty of bids for Yamamoto, even as a free agent pitcher with no MLB experience, and he eventually landed a 12-year, $325 million deal with the Dodgers. The obvious variable in his favor was his age: Yamamoto is still 25 years old, while the other notable free agents last winter were signing deals as 28- to 34-year-olds -- a factor that bodes well for Soto.

On the player's side, there are other considerations. Do Soto and Boras want the biggest guarantee, or a specific contract length? Will deferrals be an option to get to a nominal dollar figure? Is $500 million the magic target -- or the $460 million NPV value of Ohtani's deal the lowest acceptable number?

Boras and Soto will certainly be examining the possibility of opt-outs, based on the outcomes of the Harper vs. Machado deals. And of course, if expectations aren't met on the top-line dollar figure, they'll have to weigh the options of an alternative, pillow-type contract maximizing AAV.

Who are Soto's potential suitors?

It's still very early, of course, but the Yankees and Mets were by far the most common answer when discussing potential outcomes with our panel of baseball insiders. Beyond them, the Texas Rangers, Washington Nationals, San Francisco Giants and Toronto Blue Jays were all brought up multiple times -- but everyone else mentioned is seen as secondary to the New York clubs at this point.

The Yankees passed on the Boras clients available last winter despite showing interest, but the front office does have a recent history with him, signing Carlos Rodon in 2022 and Cole before that. Soto's positional fit could leave the Yankees' roster tied up with corner/DH types, including some on big-money deals, with Giancarlo Stanton under contract through 2027, Judge through 2028 and Jasson Dominguez returning to the big league team from Tommy John surgery soon and eligible for arbitration through 2029. Regardless of the roster math, given what Soto has done in his first two months in the Bronx, it's hard to envision the Yankees anything short of all-in on retaining him this offseason.

The Mets are a bit harder to peg. President of baseball operations David Stearns is coming off a low-key first winter in that role, so how will he and owner Steve Cohen approach Soto's free agency? Stearns hasn't worked with a big payroll in the past, and he hasn't tipped his hand yet on his style in high-dollar free agency. He also has three current players represented by Boras who will be entering free agency this offseason on his roster: Pete Alonso, J.D. Martinez and Sean Manaea. How much discipline Cohen and Stearns could show with a top-tier Boras client -- let alone multiple -- is the biggest lingering question in the industry right now.

However many teams pursue Soto this offseason, it will be fascinating to see whether the free agency process for Soto plays out like an old-school bidding war, reflective of the current revenue environment of the league and Soto's rare combination of age and ability. More and more in recent seasons, free agency conversations have been dictated by the analytical-model-driven, disciplined, incremental and slow process teams have taken to minimize negative outcomes rather than proactively land the player. Soto's free agency is sure to break records -- yet to be seen by how much -- but it also could illuminate plenty about the state of the sport.