The Los Angeles Dodgers appear to be out of the Juan Soto sweepstakes but the team they defeated in the 2024 World Series, the New York Yankees, is very much in — at least according to the latest report by Major League Baseball insider Jon Heyman. He made the revelation in a livestream Friday afternoon.
According to Heyman, a baseball columnist for the New York Post, the Yankees have upped their monetary offer to Soto. The Bronx Bombers are now putting a contract on the table for Soto of somewhere in the “ballpark” of $700 million over 15 years. That’s an average annual salary of $46.7 million. Heyman offered no insight into whether the contract would allow the Yankees to defer any of that money, as the Dodgers have done not only with Shohei Ohtani last offseason, but with six other players as well.
Dodgers’ Reliance on Deferrals Suggests They’re Out
In fact, according to an Associated Press analysis, between 2028 and 2046 the Dodgers will need to pay off a whopping bill of over $1 billion, all in deferred payments to just seven players. Most recently, the Dodgers signed infielder Tommy Edman to a five-year, $74 million deal with $25 million in payments deferred until 2044. The Dodgers $182 million contract with pitcher Blake Snell, finalized earlier this month, defers $66 million through 2046.
With deferred payments being the Dodgers consistent model for large, multi-year contracts, Heyman’s assertion that the Dodgers are the odd team out in the Soto sweepstakes appears to suggest that contracts offered by other teams will not include deferrals.
The bad news for the Yankees is that, while their World Series rival Dodgers are probably out, three other teams remain in the game. They include the Yankees’ arch-rival Boston Red Sox, and crosstown rival New York Mets as well as the Toronto Blue Jays. All of those teams have now made offers to Soto in the $700 million, 15-year “ballpark,” Heyman said.
“I think that’s where we are now,” Heyman said on the livestream. “I think he’s going to set a record unless by chance he says, ‘You know what? I’m not so interested in an extra 30, 40, 50, 60 million. It’s not a big deal to me. I want to go to the best team.”
Soto’s Range of Choices May be Without Precedent
In that unlikely scenario, Soto could still end up playing his next 15 seasons at Chavez Ravine. A contract of that length would take Soto through his age 41 season, in all probability the remainder of his career. But that appears to be where the Soto talks are going to end up.
Assuming he does not take a discounted price to play with the Dodgers, who have won two World Series (including in the COVID-shortened 2020 season) and 11 National League West pennants in the last 12 seasons, Soto could now end up in the Bronx, Flushing Meadows, the Fens or even north of the border — a nearly unprecedented opportunity even for a high profile free agent.
“This is an unusual situation,” Heyman said. “Normally you don’t have five teams fighting on equal ground. At least four of them are on equal ground.”
And you certainly don’t have four teams all making stratospheric offers approaching a quarter-billion dollars to one player.
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Yankees, 3 Other Teams, Raise Offers to About $700 Million For Juan Soto: Heyman