New York Mets owner Steve Cohen said that he was genuinely shocked when he received a phone call from super-agent Scott Boras telling him that the most coveted, biggest-name free agent in Major League Baseball, 26-year-old four-time All-Star Juan Soto, would be joining his team.
“Usually I’m pretty good at reading the signals. This one I totally missed,” Cohen told ESPN baseball insiders Buster Olney and Jeff Passan. “I didn’t expect it. I had no expectations it was going to happen. I was blown away.”
As more details emerged, however, it became clear that Cohen should not have been too “blown away.” Not only had he made Soto the largest financial offer is not only MLB but all professional sports history, Cohen had loaded the contract with perks to sweeten the pot for Soto.
Soto Reveals The Most Unusual Perk of All
Many of the perks in Soto’s deal have been widey reported. But not all, apparently.
On Thursday Soto himself revealed what may be the most unusual and dangerous — for the Mets organization, at least — contractual extra of all.
Cohen committed what may add up to over $800 million to Soto for him to lead the Mets to their first World Series championship since 1969, something Cohen has promised fans would happen in the first five years that he owned the team. And since he bought the club in September, 2020, time is running out.
Now Soto has said that the Mets will also allow him to risk injury and potentally his ability to play for the Mets by letting him play for another team — a team that is definitely not the Mets. According to Soto’s own statements as reported by the Dominican news outlet Septima Entrada, his contract allows him to play for Tigres del Licey of the Dominican Professional Baseball League, or LIDOM.
The LIDOM is a winter league, one of several Caribbean baseball leagues that serve as developmental training grounds for many of MLB’s top prospects. But Soto is far beyond the “prospect” stage. So why does he insist of playing winter baseball?
He has explained in previous interviews that Tigres del Licey — who play in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic and also Soto’s hometown — was his favorite team growing up. The club is not only the reigning LIDOM champion, but also the oldest and winningest team in the league with 11 championships. Soto said that the Mets have given him permission to fulfill his childhood dream of playing for Tigres, albeit for 10 games.
Perk-Laden Deal Called ‘Very CostlyTrain Wreck’
“For now we are negotiating 10 games, we don’t have the time or place,” Soto said Thursday during a visit to the Tigres ballpark, Juan Marichal Quisqueya Stadium, where he threw out the ceremonial first pitch. “We will see what happens this year, how things end for the Mets and with my health, which we hope will go well. I don’t know if it will be in three, five or eight years. Yes, they gave me the go-ahead, we don’t have a date for that, but we hope it will be as soon as possible.”
Bleeding Yankee Blue, a blog dedicated to the team Soto abandoned to take the Mets’ lavish contract, does not believe Soto’s chase of his boyhood fantasy will end well.
“After shelling out what amounts to the gross national product of a medium-sized nation, Cohen’s letting Soto trot off to the Dominican Republic for a little off-season fun. It’s like buying a Lamborghini and then handing the keys to a teenager with a learner’s permit,” wrote the Bleeding Yankee Blue bloggers on Thursday. “Cohen thought he was building a dynasty, but he might’ve just bought himself a front-row seat to a very costly train wreck.”
Comments
Juan Soto Reveals Weirdest, Most Dangerous Perk in $765 Million Mets Contract