Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2255: Oops! All Soto

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss all the aspects of Juan Soto signing a record-breaking contract with the New York Mets. That’s it. That’s the episode. Audio intro: Benny and a Million Shetland Ponies, “Effectively Wild Theme (Pedantic)” Audio outro: The Shirey Brothers, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to Dan S. on Soto Link to Ben C. on […]

Well, it's moments like these that make you ask, How can you not be pedantic about baseball? If baseball were different, how different would it be? On the case with light ripping, all analytically Cross-check and compile, find a new understanding Not effectively, why though, can you not be pedantic? Yes, when it comes to baseball, how can you not be pedantic? Hello and welcome to episode 2255 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Van Graaff's. Presented by our Patreon supporters, I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg

Rowley of Van Graraphs. Hello Meg. Hello. Well, you are talking to us from Dallas, the site of the winter meetings where the talk of the town is probably Cowboys Bengals on Monday Night Football. But the talk of the specific part of the town that you are in currently is Wonsodo signing with the New York Mets. So you're in Dallas. I am not. If we want to be pedantic about seasons, it's not actually winter yet, no matter where you are, but you are meeting and I'm meeting with you. So I'm partaking in the

winter meetings by the transitive property, I suppose you could say. And we are just going to talk about Wonsodo for the entirety of this. And we are just gonna talk about Juan Soto for the entirety of this episode. This will be an oops, all Soto episode. Not whoops. Or whoops all Soto. Not whoops all. I knew you would say it and I anticipated the question. However, it is raining here in New York, literally.

And figuratively speaking, Steve Cohen is making it rain because 756, a famous record breaking number in baseball now, so is 765. Yeah. I feel like I'm doing Boris bits here in honor of Scott. I can't believe I stepped on your bit. I'm sorry. It's okay. It wasn't that great a bit, but Juan Soto is a great baseball player and he will be paid like one better than one has ever been paid before. Better than one has ever been paid before. It works both ways. So the terms of this deal, it is just mind melting to me.

The contract terms, we knew they were going to be big, but even with our expectations, high to begin with and raised by all the rumors in recent days, I am still absolutely blown away by a 15-year, $765 million deal. Million dollar deal. Yeah, million, but you could almost bring out the big B at some point if Juan Soto, who has made 80 million to this point in his career, if he invests wisely and we're not even counting endorsement dollars here,

my man is heading for the three comma club here, I hope. If Scott Boris has the money people investing, Juan Soto's proceeds here. It is just, it has broken my brain basically. And this is not a value judgment. I'm not against the deal. It's just, I'm taken aback. I'm flummoxed. I am flustered because if you had told me any point earlier this year

before I don't know, the last week or so, that it would be this number, A, I would have had a mind boggled moment, but I would have assumed that a lot of that was deferred. And none of it is deferred. In fact, there's a siding bonus, so 75 million of it is upfront. There's also a full no trade clause. And really there's nothing else that waters down that number. If anything, there's an escalator, which sounds ridiculous to talk about with a deal that is $765 million on its face, but there's also an opt out after 2029. And the opt out, I guess, it's almost a formality probably. It seems, well, it seems unlikely to be exercised, but I guess I should say it seems unlikely that he will leave

because there's the opt out and then there's a Garrett Cole sort of situation where the Mets can overrule, yeah, void, veto the opt out by adding another 4 million per year to the final 10 years of the deal, which would bring it to 805 million. Million dollars. Yeah. So I guess there's no realistic way that he would opt out and the Mets wouldn't want to keep him. It seems unlikely. I think the way to think about that piece of it is that it strikes me as incredibly unlikely that Juan Soto will ever wear another team's uniform. In all of the scenarios where he feels like after five years, he can do better

than the existing deal, which like, I guess we should allow for the fact that, you know, contracts grow over time, baseball contracts experience inflation the same way that everything else does. And so, you know, what was the richest deal when Alex Rodriguez signed with the Rangers feels like a pittance in comparison to what Juan Soto just got. But it seems very unlikely that there is a scenario where Soto feels that he can do better than the final 10 years of his deal with the Mets. And the Mets don't immediately say, well, it's worth 40 million for us to keep you around. I mean, he's a forever Met. It's funny because it is mind boggling, but also so simple of a contract.

You know, we've, we've gotten used to Otani. We've gotten used to this, like we can't trust the top line number. We have to negotiate what it means for the contract over underdraft as an aside Ben. Oh yeah. One minus, save my bacon. Yes. Good boy, oh boy. I don't know. As much as the Otani contract hurt you last winter, the Soto contract has helped you by about the same degree, which again is incredible because when you took the over on MLB trade

rumors predicted 600 million, how much over did you think you were going to get? Like 10, 15 million? Yeah. Like I thought it would be a marginal gain. I'd be directionally right, but it wouldn't do anything for me really. Yeah, like tack on basically Blake Snell's deal over the $600 million. It's just unbelievable.

Right. Over the 600 million. It's just unbelievable. So yeah, it's funny to feel so staggered, but also not really have a lot to dissect in terms of the implications of the contract structure. The signing bonus, I'm sure, is nice for Soto from a tax perspective, but this is a pretty straightforward one, even with the so-called escalators involved with the Mets ability to avoid the deal. We were at dinner, Ben. Of course. And I know that the real question everyone listening to this podcast wants an answer

to is, did Meg get to enjoy some of the whole fish? Yeah. Did you have the brand Zeno? It was not a brand Zeno, but there was a whole fish. And I'm going to tell you, the timing of this was perfect because not only did I get to have some of the whole fish, which was delicious, but we got to have dessert, you know? It happened at a comparatively civilized hour.

I don't know that I felt that way at 1 a.m. when I was wrapping Ben Clemens' react, but pretty civilized, got to have my whole fish. I have sort of started to rebalance the scales on that one. CB 0 literally. LS But I was thinking to myself, I had, I think, asserted that the Met seemed the most likely to me of all his potential destinations over the last couple of weeks.

So as we're sitting there and I'm contemplating this beautiful fish, I was thinking to myself, when did I arrive at that conclusion? When did I feel moved that like, so does, he's probably going to be a Met. And I think that it was during the playoffs when Steve Cohen put on not only a quarter zip, but a hat and sat very close to the field during the Met's postseason run. And I think that's probably the moment where some part of my brain was like, I think Juan Soto is going to be a Met. Because it's, it's one thing to have a rich owner and it's

one thing to have an owner who's enthusiastic about baseball, but it's another thing to have an owner worth $20 billion enthusiastic about baseball. The combination of those two things to the point that one dons not only a quarter zip but also a hat and sits so close to the field. That's the behavior of a man who is in a position to say, when Scott Boris says, you know, Yankees have put 700 million on the table to say, f*** it, we're doing 765. What is this money for but to spend? You know, that was the moment that we all should have gone, yeah, so it's going to be forever met. We can, I guess, talk about the Yankees missing

out if we want to, but boy, you know, that's a, it's a pretty potent combination. Tanner Iskra Sure is. Yeah. Well, I'm happy that you had the whole fish. I find personally, most of the times I've had a whole fish, it was a mistake. I thought I was getting a filet and then was dismayed to see the whole shebang with the eyes and the bones and everything else. I'm lazy. I just, I want it deboned. I want it all cut up for me.

But normally they like, you know, they present it in a way that's easy to spoon out. Sometimes. Depends. But I saw Jason Martinez whip out the laptop to update roster resource. And presumably Ben Clemens began to blog. I am amused that his back to back posts on FanCrafts are the Met signing Wonsoto

and the Reyes signing Danny Jansen. Yeah. Just about, you know, the opposite ends of the spectrum of free agent signings. But- We cover it all at FanCrafts. Yeah, this is why there's been so much other news, poor Willie Adamus, just an afterthought here.

There's been new Hall of Famers, major moves. We'll get to it probably tomorrow next time because it's all just really swamped by Soto here. But it is just, I guess it's the number that I have dwelled on and then also the competitive implications and there's so much to say about both. I guess for the Mets, yes, the reporting that has surfaced so far is that the Yankees were close. This is not just a for show, we tried sort of situation, although there are some we tried esque messages out there,

a report that they were in the lead all the way. Well, that doesn't really matter, right? It's like a horse race or something. We were ahead all the way and then we lost in the end. And the photo finished said that the other horse won by a nose. It doesn't really matter if you were ahead for much of the race, but they obviously came close offering reportedly 760 million over 16 years. So it would suggest that there was not really much affection for the Yankees over and above New York itself. Not saying that Wonsodo didn't enjoy being a Yankee or didn't want to come back, but it certainly seems as if there was no particular pinstripe premium here. Because my assumption all along was that if it was close, that Ty would go to the Yankees, essentially, just because Soto just had a great year with the Yankees.

He won a pennant. He's beloved by Yankees fans already. It seemed like he was pretty happy, pretty comfortable there. Some reports have surfaced about an overzealous security guard kicking one Soto's family members out of a game at some point. I don't know that that would be something that would actually dictate my 15 years of the future free agent contracts considerations, but. Was it the sister who was supposedly in Boston looking at apartments?

Maybe. And the Red Sox reportedly were in it too and not entirely in an empty way. They were up to 700 at least it sounds like. So there were a lot of teams that were in this. And so I sort of assumed that if the Yankees would more or less match the money, that that would settle things. That maybe Soto likes playing with Judge, having him hit behind him, being so embraced the way he has, but clearly not really, right? It can't have been that much of a consideration

because at that point, if you're talking about 15 years versus 16 years or 765 versus 760, the implications of that on your quality of life are far lower than the implications of the team that you play for and the fans you're playing in front of and the ballpark you're playing in, et cetera, right? So even if ultimately he was interested in the biggest number, it can't really have, uh, the Yankees couldn't have had much of a lead.

So I just assumed that they're the incumbents. They'd have an edge. I know incumbents just in general aren't doing that well these days worldwide. And I guess we can add this to the list. So that's got a smart, if you're a Yankees fan and you're thinking, boy, I sure loved having Juan Soto on this team. It seemed like he liked being here.

And not only did he leave, but he left for the Mets. Yeah, I do wonder, so you're saying that the Yankees should have talked more about the price of eggs. I would have gotten them over the hump. You're right in so far as like once you're into that kind of range, you have more money than you're ever going to be able to spend, right? Like you have more money than you're ever going to be able to spend. Your children are likely to have more money than they'll ever be able to spend. It is a staggering amount of money. I'll say this though, and this is speculation on my part because we haven't

gotten the exact tick-tock of which offer upped the other, how much back and forth there really was with the Yankees versus the Mets. You wonder if the poor Blue Jays were in there just to like drive everyone else's offers up. We talked about how Soto is in this unique position where he's very young, he's going to sign this incredibly lucrative contract. He's going to sign a big deal no matter what. What are the other things you ask in the meeting when you're Soto and Boris and what are the

kinds of assurances around sort of the competitive nature of the team, what the club is going to do, how does it approach players, those sorts of things. And it wouldn't shock me to learn that, you know, the Yankees come in, they say, we'll do 760 and you know, maybe the Mets hear that and Cohn without hesitation is like, we'll do 765. Also, here's this opt out, no deferrals. We have the ability to avoid your opt out, but that's going to bring you up to 805 if we do it. I wonder if both the willingness to go the distance, the willingness to just do no deferrals, get you your money, here's your big signing bonus, spoke to something about

the Mets sort of willingness to just flash money, to use Cone's resources to build a better baseball team. And if it pretended for Soto, not just that he was going to make bank, that's a far gone conclusion, but that, you know, in other negotiations, in other instances of the club needing to beat out a competitor to bring in a marquee guy that there is just a willingness to add one more, to do one more, to add an extra year, to, you know, not make you do a deferral to whatever. I don't want to give the Mets and Cone too much credit here, right?

There are still some holes that they have to fill on this team. There's still work to be done. But I think that one of the things that his tenure as the Mets owner has indicated is that money is going to be a resource. It's going to be one that's used pretty liberally and it's also going to be deployed in a lot of different ways. Sometimes the thing that the money gets you is Wonsodo. Sometimes the thing the money gets you is better prospects when you're trading Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander because you're

willing to eat money so that you can get better players in return. That it is not only a resource that Cohen seems to view as maybe not totally inexhaustible, but nearly so, but also really variable in its application and that there are going to be a lot of different instances where it's going to be used. And I wonder if that just spoke to something that Soto wanted from an assurance perspective, because I imagine and have no reason not to believe that the Yankees made a really earnest effort to sign this guy. You don't offer $7.60 if you're not willing to have him take that offer. But I think that the entire time we have also heard about like, well, how much more can they actually spend?

And then, are they gonna have to, you know, cut payroll other places? And Steve Cohen's here going, I got the zip up and the hat. I got both. Let's go. You know, so I wonder. I wonder if he just sort of said,

I am going to be the biggest baseball billionaire in New York. You cannot top me. Whatever they offer, I am going to be the biggest baseball billionaire in New York. You cannot top me. Whatever they offer, I will tack on an extra however many million it takes to get it done. I'm imagining some sort of Steinbrenner, Cohen, anything you can do, I can do better kind of duet from Andy Get Your Gun where they're just both calling up Boris and Soto and pitching themselves. We speculated and many speculated that it would just come down to those two and a bidding war between the Yankees and the Mets. And that was obviously the best case scenario for Boris and Soto. And really,

you probably could have just locked everyone in a room, just Steinbrenner and Cohen with auction paddles and Scott Boris up just reading up the numbers. I got 700, can I get 760? And then Cohen puts up his paddle and ultimately that's how it's done. There's been some reporting about Cohen invited Soto to his house and wanted to personally host him and really put on the charm and that seems to have helped. But it does seem like it's not just about those meetings as we said, it's also about whether you've demonstrated that money is no object. And the Yankees at times have certainly considered money to be an object and have said as much. And Cohen really hasn't said that. He hasn't really ever indicated that there's a limit and I could see why that would be appealing to a player. So

I'm sure that there are Yankees fans consoling themselves and saying not just the sour grapes, like, oh, well, if he wanted to be a Met, we didn't want him anyway, or trying to find fault with him in a way that you never would have if he had signed with the Yankees. But just sort of saying, well, I guess he wasn't as into us as we were to him, right? Because there's no discount really being had here. And I'm sure some Yankees fans are frazzled, discombobulated by being in the unfamiliar position of being outbid for a top target. It's hard to cry poverty franchise after you offer a player 760 million although I don't doubt some Yankees fans ability to do it But in light of that number which is Garrett Cole's contract plus Aaron judge's contract plus almost a hundred million more

I could see some Yankees fans saying good riddance too rich even for our blood if he cared about winning He would have counted the rings. And you could tell yourself, well, the Mets will regret this a decade or something, assuming that the opt out doesn't happen. I guess there's some scenario where he opts out because he's just been great for them for the next five years. But at the time they decide, well, let's, uh, let's quit while we're ahead in the one Soto business. And we got several prime years and maybe we don't want to be on the hook for the last decade here.

And we'll let someone else jump on that grenade if they think it's going to be a grenade. But really if he's been that productive between now and the opt out periods, then teams will probably still be lining up for his services. So it does seem to sort of reset the balance of power a bit among the New York teams, which I don't know that anyone outside of New York particularly cares about, but it obviously, it's not just the smarting ego and the pride that Mets fans might be feeling here. Though I've certainly talked to some Mets fans

who are thinking, boy, this is great, glad we got him, but that is a steep price tag for anyone, even Juan Soto. He is worth $20 billion. It's fine, It's fine. You just don't, you don't have to worry about it. I really don't think you do. Now, if you're Pete Alonzo, maybe you're bummed because, you know, and not even from a payroll perspective,

but you know, if you're Pete Alonzo, you're like, maybe not gonna bring in another mostly bat first guy. Because, you know, Soto's not a bat... He's a bat forward guy. He's still playable in the field. There will come a time where that stops being true. But if you're Alonso, maybe you're like, maybe I'm not the perfect roster fit anymore.

But they also sent me a first baseman, so who even knows? But I understand it is a tremendous amount of money. It is an unfathomable amount of money to a normal person. But also one time Steve Cohn bought a shark in formaldehyde. This is a way better use of his money than that weird thing was. So I'm just saying like, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. One Soto is the, he's the baseball version of fine art and an actual timeless art that one would want to display because of the aesthetics of watching One Soto swing a bat

followed closely by the aesthetics of One Soto opting not to swing a bat, which can also be extremely pleasing, probably more so than anyone else. I think we've talked about that, that just plate discipline and selectivity, that's not necessarily something that's going to get most fans going, but Wonsodo makes that even so entertaining to watch. He's just a great spectator experience, not only a great player, but even if he's taking his walks between the shuffle and the stairs and the crotch adjustments and everything

else, and just the spitting on just pitches that are just just outside the strike zone, it's just a beautiful thing to watch. And it is very funny how obviously understood the quality of his game is that we have been recording for almost half an hour and we have actually not talked about Juan Soto baseball player. That has not been part of this conversation. First of all, we've talked so much about how good he is and for so long in a way that is shocking because again, this I will say, still so young, so young, still so, so, so, so young compared to when guys of his quality normally hit the free agent market.

It is, he is only recently able to rent a car and have it not cost more. Do you think Ron Soto ever has to rent a car? Does he just have, I mean, he lives in Florida. He certainly doesn't have to. I think he could buy a car for each separate trip he wants to take at this point and discard it when he gets there. But yeah, I mean, I hope he doesn't do that because that sounds very wasteful. But like this guy has been so good for so long and is still only just now 26 and has been worth by our estimation of war our version of war 36 wins already in his pro career he has already hit more than 200 home runs only just barely but 200 he has a 158 career WRC plus the only thing that is more shocking

about Juan Soto than the contract he just signed is how many different teams he has played for. That is the only thing that is more shocking than this deal. The fact that this guy has been, is on his fourth team is unfathomable. And I'm not saying that to knock the nuts for trading him, although I could make a case.

And I'm not knocking the powders for trading him, although I could make a case. It's just that guys like this, players like this, are so rarely available ever, you know, until they hit free agency. For him to have moved around to the extent that he has is, I mean, it's a reflection on the teams, not on him as a player, obviously, but it's just still, it's Ben. Yeah. It is extraordinary. Yeah. For him to be on four teams in four years this earlier in his career,

while off to one of the greatest offensive starts that we've ever seen. Yeah. A player like this, usually when you get him, you hold onto him and you pay him whatever it takes. And you certainly don't have him traded multiple times before he reaches free agency. And no, it doesn't seem to be at all a reflection on Wonsodo. It's not like there's any sort of buzz about him not being a good teammate or something. No, everyone seems to like Wonsodo and certainly likes having him play for them. But it's just this unusual confluence of events. I guess, A, the Nationals exploring a sale, right? And ownership just maybe. And they offered him, what was it, 440, which seemed like a lot at the time. And in retrospect,

seems like they kind of gone up quite a bit and it still would have been a bargain compared to what he ultimately made. Though obviously that was a couple of years before he reached free agency and there's always some risk inherent in that. But that and then of course the death of Peter Seidler, which at least according to Boris,

maybe played a part in Soto not being a padre. But yes, it is one of the weirdest progressions for an all-time great young player that we've ever seen. But it's kind of nice to share the wealth. Everyone gets to see the one Soto traveling show, at least for a little while before now he is locked down. they've made him an honest man. He is not going to be roaming around anymore. He will be a Met, as you said. I wonder, I guess if you were to try to put a percentage on the odds that he will never play for another team again,

I think they are quite high. There's always, apart from the slight opt out possibility, there's also, I guess you never know the chance that maybe when he's 39 or something, things aren't going so great and he's blocking someone and the Mets let him go and he catches on with someone else for some little last hurrah or some sort of Pujols type reunion or who knows what, right? Sometimes you get those weird very end of career cameos that you almost forget in retrospect. So maybe he won't be a permanent Met, but for the meaningful portion of his career, one would think

that he will. And that really matters to the Mets, I think, because A, they had the second oldest lineup in baseball this year. Good lineup, productive lineup. The Dodgers had the oldest lineup and it was even better. But yeah, if you're going to go get one guy who A, is going to be a massive upgrade over what you got out of Starling Marte, for instance, but also who will bring down your average age while also being an absolute superstar who's on a clear cut Cooperstown trajectory, if you can kill both of those birds with one stone, just go get the best available free agent. And also, he makes you considerably younger and more future-proof. That is very rare. And that is why Juan Soto just completely broke the bank

here because you just don't see that combination of youth and talent in very many free agents. Yeah. We talk a lot about his age, but I think the way that his age is interacting with the rest of that roster is sort of an under discussed until right now part of the appeal here. Lindor's 31 and Nimmo's almost 32 and Marte's 36 and McNeil is almost 33. So like they're on the older side in a lot of their spots. If you're a Mets fan, does this make you more or less confident that you'll see additional signings this off season? This would make me more confident that they are going to continue to spend because I feel like you don't give Juan Soto $765 million to then be like, no, but we're really happy with like Paul Blackburn being our fifth starter. And I'm not trying to knock Paul Blackburn,

he's a fine big leaguer. They just poached another Yankee in Clay Homes who is definitelyly gonna be a starter for them and Montas too, but yes, and who knows what assurances they may have made to want Soto to sign with us because we're not done, we're just getting started, but they are because they had contracts come off the books. They are only third, even with Soto now in projected payroll and competitive balance

tax payroll at about 250 mil. Dodgers and Phillies are both above them. So as preposterous as it sounds, they do have payroll room, I guess when you're Steve Cohen, they do. They still have work to do and I would feel more confident that they're going to do it if I cheered for, what does Wonsodo think of Grimace? Whatever his Grimace takes. I don't know.

They don't need Grimace anymore. They have Wonsodo, right? Like you thought they had too many bits. I thought it was a fun amount of bits, but the thing is they may be post bits now. They don't need. Now they have to be serious. They don't, I mean, they don't have to be the Yankees or anything just because they're outspending the Yankees.

No, please don't. But strike out on your own Mets. Yeah. They don't necessarily need to rely on the power of pumpkins and McDonald's mascots because they have one Soto and they have Francisco Lindor, which maybe Lindor Soto won't be quite as potent a combo as 2024 Judge Soto, but in terms of vibes and fun, can't top those two. So that's going to be a ton of fun. Kat Fenske Yeah, that's pretty exciting. I think that,

yeah, they might be bigger than Bits now. I mean, they can't do the pumpkin again, unless Alonzo returns, because it would be rude to steal his bit, you know, to not give him a contract and then take his bit. It would be terrible. Although he did seem to abandon the pumpkin. So maybe the pumpkin would appreciate it, you know, finding a forever home of its own. Yeah.

But yeah, they can't do the pumpkin again, absent Alonzo. Grimace was just like in the Macy's Day Thanksgiving parade, not a stitch of Mets stuff on him. So I think that that has to be done. And I don't know, the Huk Tuur girl might have done securities fraud. So you got to be done with her. Pete Slauson Well, then again, does Steve Cohen have to be done with people who have potentially done some securities products at one point? I mean, you said potentially. Alleged is the word that you and his lawyers are looking for.

I wonder if I could, what I would say, if I could go back in time to finance Life Mag when Steve Cohen's hedge fund was a client of the firm I worked for. What would I say to that version of Meg? Like, don't worry about Cohen and his alleged crimes. He's going to own the Mets one day. I think I would find that to be a well-matched match, but for different reasons. Because, you know, a lot has changed, but for Cohen and the Mets, good for them. It has. Yeah. And for people who were just, you know, a lot has changed, both for Cohen and the Mets. Good for them. It has. Yeah. And for people who were just saying,

how could a baseball player possibly be worth this much on the field? Now, obviously, there's always a little bit of a winner's curse. And the free agent recipient perhaps pays a premium. There's that Andrew Friedman quote out there about, if you always insist on not overpaying, then you'll end up third in every race for a free agent. And the Dodgers ended up probably further back than third here. I guess their need for Soto was not quite as acute, so they settled for Michael Conforto, which is a bit of a step down, but they're not done either. We'll talk about the Dodgers next time.

It does feel like we skipped several contract milestones somewhere along the way because if you just look at Otani's 700 million from last offseason, well, then this looks like an incremental improvement and you could say, well, how could Wansoto be more valuable than Shoei Otani? Well, he's not currently, but Shoei Otani is what? Four plus years older than Wansoto and was three plus years older last off season than Soto is now. And that makes an underrated difference. You might not think three or four years makes that much of a difference. It's huge. It's enormous.

It's night and day. Dan Siborski mentioned this in his post at VanGraft. Yes, I was just about to say. Yeah. If you age up Soto a few years artificially, then it has the expectation for the contract because you're costing yourself a few prime seasons when you're

really expecting to make your money's worth and get your return on investment from the team perspective. And then you're also factoring in a steeper decline phase than an earlier one if that free agent is older when you land them. So it really makes an enormous, enormous difference. And that's why these are the really paradigm resetting sorts of contracts. This is why A-Rod is maybe the best comp here because he was even younger than Soto when he first became a free agent. And so it's him,

it's Otani who of course brought off his off the field value and maybe Barry Bonds when he left the pirates, but it's really A-Rod and A-Rod reset the scale too, back in 2000, almost a quarter century ago, to the day when he signed his $252 million deal. That doubled the previous record commitment, which was of course to Mike Hampton. I don't know how many guesses would that have taken people, but it was Mike Hampton. Although Manny Ramirez signed almost immediately after A-Rod, like a day later, that was quite a one-two combo. And as Zach Kramm, my colleague at the ringer pointed out in his Soto reaction piece, the difference between Manny's contract and A-Rod's was roughly akin to the difference between Soto's and Otani's in terms of net present value. So it's sort of a similar percentage

increase there. And it really just does come down to the age and just how superlative a hitter Juan Soto is believed to be. And it feels like we should have had like a $500 million man and a $600 million man and a legitimate $700 million dollar man, not with a ton of deferrals. We skipped several steps and just went straight to $765 million with no caveats whatsoever. And I guess any long-term contract, I suppose there's a time value of money depreciation element because 15 years, that that's a long time but just the normal amount not the extremely deferred way that we do that kind of accounting as we did with Otani so yeah what a difference a few years makes. Some of

that I just chalk up to you know you have the interaction of the normal inflation that we see with free agent contracts over time. And then, like, we really should focus as much on these guys are so rare, you know, that you would get a Soto at the age that he is with the kind of bat that he has. Very rare. We don't, we really don't see it. That you would have a talent like Otani, where you're right, like there's all of this sort of off the field value that that guy brings

to the franchise. He's a two way player. He just wanted MVP. He's amazing. You know, they don't come along that often. Even the guys who maybe aren't totally resetting the market but are sort of coming to occupy what we think of as like examples of mega stars getting big deals, you know, your Harpers, your Machados, like the remember when Harper and Machado were free agents in the same office? That was wild. But you know, guys even in that tier where maybe they're not Ohtani level in terms of both the versatility of the talent and the marketing appeal, which isn't to say that they don't have marketing

appeal, but they don't have quite the special combination of prowess on the field with an international audience that is going to make them sort of uniquely valuable in that sense, you know, their Q scores or whatever we're calling them. But like guys like that are rare, you know, the Harpers are rare and Bryce Harper is a great player. I'm not trying to knock Bryce Harper, but it's like part of why I think we end up sometimes getting these big leaps after, you know,

moving along with big contracts, but ones that are tied to some notion of regular inflation that seem to be incremental steps up from the prior group of really good guys is that guys like Otani and Soto just don't come along that often. You do need to have that combination of a receptive market, typical inflation, and then a just unusually good talent. Then you have to marry all of those things with an owner that is as deep-pocketed as Guggenheim Partners or Steve Cohen. That combination of things, I don't think, comes along all that often. So I think that's what accounts for these big leaps. I'm imagining

Patrick Stewart in the beginning of X-Men, like sometimes evolution takes a leap forward, you know? Yeah. Like that. Yeah. And then you have the other owners being Patrick Stewart from First Contact being like, Steve Cohen, this father, no father. That's my Patrick Stewart. I think it's almost as good as my Jimmy Stewart.

Not quite, but it's close. Neck and neck. First Contact is a great movie. People should watch it. He just, he brings this perfect combination of contact and patience and power and this preternatural sense of the strike zone and the And the on base ability, everyone knows it, but I was looking at OBP plus the fan craft stat, which compares a player's on base ability to the league average during his era.

And only Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, and Barry Bonds have higher career OBP plus marks than Soto. And that's two guys who played at least part of their careers, if not all of them preintegration, and then one who was closely associated with steroid use. And of course, Soto hasn't had his decline phase yet, and the Mets hope that he won't for quite some time. But even if you look at it just through his age, then the only players who can compare relative to the league on base ability are Babe Ruth and Ted Williams and Frank Thomas actually. And he's also extremely durable. He hasn't been on the IL for a few years now and never really for anything serious. And because he's so young, he's had more than half

a Hall of Fame career already. Right. You mentioned he's up to 37, Van Graaff's war, whatever it is. And, you know, it's all been peak basically for a lot of players just from the day he showed up more or less. But also he, in theory has a whole Hall of Fame career ahead of him because of his age. Right. And I know it's, it's difficult even to envision the old version of Juan Soto.

I mean, he's never looked super young. He's always been so mature as a player and even, I guess, facially in a sense, he's not like a baby face exactly, but he has just always been the young guy. Even now, when we're talking about Luis Gil, American league rookie of the year award winner, older than Juan Soto, you can still have the Juan Soto age fun facts. So to even contemplate the possibility of a 40 year old Juan Soto,

that just, I mean, how old will we be? I don't wanna do that math right now, but. I don't understand why you would do that. I'm just sitting here like having a nice conversation in an echoey hotel room and you're like, hey, you know how you're going to be old? Yeah, but 2039, that far away year, the final season of his deal will be his age 40 season.

But Dan Siborski, who of course is the proprietor of Zips for Fan Crafts, he ran the numbers for Soto over those 15 seasons and found that even if you factor in the winner's curse and the billionaire bidding war and all the rest, it's not really that far out of line for what you would. It's not that far off. It's not that far above what the system would say. I guess Zips might not have said that 15 years was the most likely length of the term, but given 15 years,

Zips spits out what 719 or something, like it's within spitting distance basically, because Zips projects him to produce 65.8 more war over the life of his contract. And that is a hall of fame career right there. That is, I looked this up, there. That is- That's stupid. I looked this up. That is Craig Bischio's career war to the 10th of a win.

That's so hard. Hall of Famer, it's within one war of the career totals of Tim Rains, Robin Yount, Mark McGuire, Harmon Kilibrew, Manny Ramirez, Edgar Martinez, Tony Gwyn. So not only are you signing a future Hall of Famer and presumably getting your cap on his plaque, but you're getting a whole Hall of Fame career in theory. And that might be extra special to the Mets because they've never had a Hall of Fame position player. So between Soto and Francisco Lindor, I would say they've given themselves a pretty solid chance of finally getting on the board. It just transforms their lineup. It just gives them another face of the franchise. They can

pencil in or pen in for years and years to come. That's why the numbers are not that ridiculous when you actually run the projections and run the numbers. And does that mean that Wonsodo will certainly be productive at age 39 or even age 34? No, it doesn't necessarily. A lot of things could go wrong. He could get hurt. He could turn out to have old player skills. And I kind of think of his incredible play discipline

as a positive. Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, I get that there's going to come a time where he is a DH only guy because you are, you know, he's a middling defender at best. At best, that's generous probably, but yeah. It's probably generous. And you know, he's not exactly a burner

on the base paths either, but so you're looking looking at you're looking at a DH only guy, but I I do think that when you're Looking at the shape of his production like it it does strike me as a skill set that seems like it's gonna age Well, you know, there's a there's a reasonably productive floor that I think that guy will have even as he enters his 30s and gets to learn all the indignities that come from sleeping wrong one time. Yeah, hotel beds, man. I don't know. The hotel beds are fine. Yeah. I quite like hotel beds, actually. I've found many of them are fantastic. But will you allow a quick low stakes rant or preview of our Patreon episodes?

What's with hotel pillows, Ben? What's up with that? Why are they always so bad? They're so often so bad. Even in nice- I'm a firm pillow person and I find that, yeah. I can't get that on the road. No, getting a lot of really soft, really soft, squishy down.

People just, you want your, yeah, your pillow-y, I guess pillow-y is, I mean, that does suggest softness. It's right there in the adjective. I want some support. Yeah, me too. Right. Yeah. And it's like, you know, they give you all these pillows.

They give you so many pillows on the hotel bed, but I could have fewer pillows if they were good pillows, Ben, you know? I have to stack the extra soft pillows to get the effect of one firm pillow that I have at home. Yeah. Ridiculous. I mean, someone must want this or they probably wouldn't keep manufacturing

such soft pillows. I suspect- Unless it's a decorative thing. Yeah, I suspect it is a combination of decorative and maybe there's like a cost component to this that I'm failing to appreciate. Although aren't down pillows more expensive than like synthetic?

Anyway, it seems like in addition to being too soft, it would be a problem for some, a lot of people can't do down, you know, they're allergic. Yeah, well, one sort of has signed the opposite of a pillow contract, I guess I can segue us back into that. And, you know, he is hoping that that pitchers will continue to be allergic to throwing him. No, I don't know. I was trying to do a, but I think that is a long way of saying that he strikes me as someone whose skill set will age well, like a fine wine. And the wildest thing to think about is that even

when he is 10 years into this deal, assuming no opt out, which I feel comfortable doing, he'll still be younger than I am now. That's wild, wild. Yeah, yeah, because we think of speed, aging quickly. Now, maybe it gives you a higher place to start from. You can lose a few steps and still possess plenty of steps if you start with a lot of them, but that goes quickly and picture velocity goes quickly and maybe contact bat to ball perhaps that erodes, but you tend to think of plate discipline

as a skill that older players, if anything, refine as time goes on and that maybe that's something that can compensate for decreased reaction speed. It's not a given. Obviously eyesight can suffer, although at least that can often be fixed. You can get your LASIK tune up, right? But maybe it can ebb in other ways. You would have said that about Albert Pujols who of course had great plait of splint and incredible walk rates. And then weirdly,

that just kind of collapsed not long after he left St. Louis. And whether that is because his ability to recognize pitches disappeared or because he knew that he couldn't get to certain pitches that he could have gotten to before and so maybe had to start a swing earlier or cheat a little bit, it's hard exactly to untangle that weird mid-career collapse of plate discipline that Albert Pujols had, but you never know. He was so good and so mature as a player early on, but I suppose it's possible that people who are thinking, oh, he might still get even better. Maybe we haven't seen prime peak Soto yet. Who knows? Maybe he'll have an earlier peak, but I don't know that there's any reason to think that he will tail off more quickly than anyone else. And I think there are some reasons to think just the opposite

in fact, but that is the difference between him and say, A-Rod when he was young because A-Rod was PD caveats aside, just a better player than Wonsoto because he was an all-around player, because he was a good glove at short, because he was valuable on the bases, certainly much more than Juan Soto is. If you had to guess, let's say that Juan Soto spends the duration of this contract with the Mets, how many seasons of the 15 do you think it will take before he is, let's say, a majority DH or primary DH? He plays most of his games in that season as a DH, and it's hard to predict because who knows? Is Alonzo in the

picture? Is someone else? What are their positional needs? Right. But his health like, you know, yeah, but like, it seems like it'll have a lot to do with how long do you think it'll take? Is there a certain amount of time that he, he needs to remain mobile enough to play the outfield for this deal to quote unquote work or what, like, what's your expectation for when he will make that transition to the DH phase of his career? Okay. So let's imagine you're a Yankees fan trying to cope, right? You're trying to cope.

You're having a hard day. You're having a hard morning. Maybe you went to bed before the news broke and then you had to wake up to it. Hard way to start the day. It's Monday, already a rough day of the week. And then you find out that this guy you thought was going to help your team finally get over the hump and win a world series, which you haven't been able to enjoy since 2009, which is such a long time ago. That wasn't generous of me. I take back my tone. You're in pain.

You're a Yankees fan. So you're sitting there and you're trying to cope and you're like, he's gonna be a DH. You know, at the outside, he's a full-time DH 10 years from now, right? That's maybe optimistic that he make it to his age 36, and be a DH. And you're like, I don't want to pay that guy $765 million. That sounds like a bum.

And then you remember the following. What year did Shohei Otani just have as a DH? A DH with the DH penalty, how many wins did he put up all on his very own? You know? And so I'm saying that like it is better for both Soto and the Mets, I think, in terms of the production they get on the field, what they're able to do with the rest of their roster, the flexibility that him being in Bright affords them.

It's better for them, and it's better for him as face of the franchise guy, to be able to play the field, I think think in terms of your interaction with sports talk radio callers, it's better if he's in right. But I also think that it is just, he is such a special hitter that assuming that he is healthy and that the reason they pull him from right and put him at DH full time is that they really, his bat is still fantastic. He's still super productive as a hitter, but they are getting to the point where his defense is underwater that he's still just so, it's still so good.

It's still so good. Now the reasonable counter argument to that is, do you really get a version of Soto where the defense decays to the point that it is a drag on his overall value and still have him be this productive of a hitter? And maybe that's a reasonable counter argument. But I also would say, he's a pretty bad defender now and he hits like a freaking God. So I don't know, I think there's probably room to explore the relationship between those two things.

I also think that as big as the number is, and I'm not trying to tell you that it's not enormous, I do think that citing the 765 million, as I started out doing on this episode, I think that does exaggerate it a bit because in many people's minds, I don't think this is a straw person I'm constructing here, I think they think of it as almost a lump sum, whereas it's not. Now, if you say 51 million a year average annual value, that's still a very large number, but it's not as

much larger compared to the next person, right? It's that it's not only the highest AAV ever, but also the longest contract. It's the combination of those things. But 765 million, you're talking about GDP of not tiny nation numbers. You're talking about entire sports franchise numbers. You're talking about measurable portion of Steve Cohen's net worth, still a small portion, but a measurable fraction.

Yes, and that's not what this is. This is 51 million a year. If Steve Cohen puts his billions in some interest bearing account, it's probably generating that much from like passive income because he is so enormously wealthy, right? So it's not, when you think about it on a year to year basis, yes, it is a ton of money and some amount of it is upfront, but it's not like you have to splash that cash all at once. You parcel it out year by year,

and I think that makes it more manageable, obviously, from a CPT perspective, but a little less just earth shattering when you contemplate it that way, as opposed to comparing that 765 number to things that also might be worth roughly that much if you were to put them on the market and get that payment immediately. This is 15 years.

As you said, there's a lot of inflation, there's a lot of earning that Cohen can do. It's just a different proposition. So I'm explaining fairly fundamental math and economics here, but I've kind of felt that even myself just seeing 765, 765, oh my goodness, and then thinking, yeah, but he doesn't get all of that until the contract is up in 15 years. Yeah. And I think that you could note that he's getting a big chunk of change up front, but I think that you're right. Like it is, I don't know that it's misleading,

but I do think that people tend to think about these things like once Oda's gonna walk down to the bank tomorrow with a check for $765 million, and the teller's gonna be like, I don't know if we can handle this deposit. Like I have to go get my manager, where you have a check, you could do this wire transfer. Do you have a private wealth management person

who should be handling this for you? I don't, but you know, it's all a lot of money. Gonna get a big slug of that up front. I don't know, as long as like 0.72 doesn't need to bail out another hedge fund brought down by Game Stock stock, I think it'll be fine. I guess Stephen stepped away from the day-to-day management of hedge funds. That's a little Easter egg for people who are like, oh yeah, remember the Game Stock thing? They're still going. Okay.

CB I wonder, this is the sort of number that when people just hear that top line total, it makes them think there's a certain sort of person who has that visceral reaction. How could a baseball player possibly be worth this much? Something is way out of whack here. These players, they're spoiled, they're entitled, et cetera. Now that's silly in the sense that obviously Steve Cohen is vastly unimaginably more- $21 billion.

Yes. And Steve Cohen actually has all those billions right now as opposed to 15 years from now. I mean, more or less- Technically, he might not have all of them right now from a cash perspective because I feel like one of them are tying up on assets, but I take your broader point, Ben. It's not liquids, but those are his current assets. And so as wealthy as- Right. And a lot of it's as good as liquid, yeah. As wealthy as Wonsodo is and is about to be, there's a vast gulf between that type of

wealth and Steve Cohen type of wealth. And so when people say players are spoiled and they're too rich, et cetera, well, okay, but it's just coming out as Steve Cohen's pocket and he's wealthier, unimaginably more wealthy than Wonsodo is. And probably, I guess, many billionaires are providing less value to society than Wonsodo will be purely an entertainment value. I suppose Steve Cohen is providing the entertainment value of Wonsoto, supplying Wonsoto to Mets fans. But you know, if you, if you're looking for a less sympathetic side of these things and you just think, again, this is not coming out of fans pockets, because

that's just not the way the economics work. It's, it's a supply and demand sort of situation. It's not we sign expensive free agents and then we raise parking prices and we raise ticket prices. Those prices are what the market will bear basically. And so it's just a wealth transfer from an extremely, extremely 0.001% wealthy person to a point fewer zeros, but still a lot of zeros percent person. What you can say, I guess, is that where have we gone wrong as a society that an athlete could be making $765 million cumulatively on this contract while many people whose labor we rely on for really essential integral services and the raising of the next generation and everything else are scraping by on comparative pittance. But this is the way we've organized our society and this is

the way capitalism apparently works and certain people seem to generate lots of revenue and others not so much and that is unjust and unfair in some very real ways and also not exactly Juan Soto's fault or something that he can single-handedly correct. So I do understand the hand-wringing from that perspective, just like where have we gone wrong? Our values are just out of whack. We like baseball and one Soto's really fun, but should he in a just ideal world be compensated on the scale compared to everyone else who's having a hard time making ends meet

and providing some valuable service to society? Totally on board with all of that. Don't really know what to do about it. But it's a little beyond the scope of this podcast potentially, but I get it. I absolutely understand that sort of knee-jerk reaction that's less about the baseball economics and more about societal priorities. LS. Can I sing a few bars on this question? Or maybe sing again the same bars that I have sung before? I think that there's like a really valuable and important conversation that we should be having as a society, like beyond Effectively Wild, which doesn't get to dictate these things from a policy perspective as much as we would like to about how we value work and contribution.

I do have a lot of sympathy for the reflexive sort of ick that some people get when they see these guys sign these huge deals that provide them with generational wealth, maybe generational wealth on a smaller scale than Steve Cohen has, but generational wealth nonetheless. Yeah. Many, many generations. Yeah. And I think that I and many of the people who believe that players should get a very significant share of the revenue pie would be open to a bigger conversation about that

as a culture and as a society and as citizens and voters. And at the end of that conversation, if it comes out that Juan Soto doesn't get to have a $765 million contract, well, Steve Cohen doesn't get $21 billion either, right? Like the scale is so much more profoundly tipped in the favor of the ownership class that that is the place that you would want to start. But yeah, I get it. I know how much money public school teachers make. It's a crime. The fact that they make what they do is ridiculous. They provide so much value to society. So I think that there's a good conversation for us to have there, but at the end of it, I got bad news for Steve Cohen, you know? Yeah. And I'm sure there are people who are saying, okay, we get it. Baseball players

generate a lot of revenue. They're entitled to their fair share of that revenue, but also $765 million for Juan Soto. It's one thing if it's Otani and it's 700. And even if someone doesn't fully grasp the implications of the deferrals in Shohei Otani's contract, even if they think that's a legitimate net present value, sort of 700 million, they might think, okay, special dispensation for Otani because he is unique and he does something that no one else does and he does it better than everyone else and also has all of this off the field interest that he generates fine. Whereas Wan Soto is a fantastic player, but a fantastic conventional player. He is bound by the laws and rules of the sports.

He does not pitch. He does not suddenly decide to steal 50 plus bases in addition to everything else. One dimensional is harsh. It's an incredible dimension, but he is not someone who just defies belief that he could even exist at this stage. So I could see why someone would say this is a mere mortal, a true great player, but not even necessarily the best player in baseball. If you were to project, maybe a judge certainly and an Otani to some extent, obviously they're older and maybe one of these years, Wonsota will have the best projection. If he hasn't already, he actually may have already. I think he already has some seasons, but he's clearly like, you know, in the top three-ish, certainly best players in baseball, but it's not leaps and bounds

better. And so I could see someone saying, okay, like even if baseball players are entitled to tons of cash, this is an overpay for Wonsoto. And maybe it will turn out to be, but so many of these things, it's like, what's the upshot of that? Is Steve Cohen going to be crying poor at the end of this? Is he going to be unable to make ends meet? No. The only possible reason to really sweat about that, if you're a Mets fan, is looking ahead 10, 15 years down the road and saying, is this a roadblock potentially at that point? Will he be played even though he's not productive anymore because of the salary? Or will the fact

that that 51 million is on the books, will that preclude other moves being made at that point? Will it be a drag on the resources of the Mets? And look, if Steve Cohen is still running the show and still solvent, there's no real reason to think that it will be. So the opportunity cost here, unless Steve Cohen says, okay, we're tapped out, here's Juan Soto, hope you like him, but now I'm done and I can't upgrade the pitching staff and I can't go get this guy or that guy. And maybe that's sort of what happened with A-Rod in Texas where he lived up to his end of the bargain, but the team wasn't great. And if you look at the fan graphs estimated free agent values for Alex

Rodriguez's production as a Ranger, he was worth every penny. It's just that they didn't really surround him with the supporting pieces that they would have needed to turn that into a great team. So if that same fate befalls the Mets, then yeah, you might say, oh, maybe we could have cobbled together that production from a few other players and it would have been less expensive or less of an impediment to future moves. But at this stage, I don't know that there's that much reason to fret about this getting in the way of anything else realistic that the Mets might wanna do. Yeah, look, I'm never gonna tell other people not to worry

because real pot calling the kettle black situation over there, but I wouldn't worry if I were a Mets fan. $51 million a year is eminently reasonable for someone with Steve Cohen's resources. And I don't want to say that the man has never made bad investments, but I think one of the ways that you can know that this is fine is that Steve Cohen decided that he could afford to pay Juan Soto $51 million a year. And he tends to have a pretty good sense of these things and sure he's being swayed by his tender human feelings. He has a zip up and a hat, Ben. But I think

that the idea that, you know, the sort of cold calculating math of this didn't enter into the equation for him would be silly. I'm sure that he had a number that he would have said no at, but this wasn't it. So I think it's going to be fine. And it's not like $51 million invested in one player 10 years from now isn't still going to be a big number because it is still going to be a big number even 10 years from now, but it won't be quite as big a big number 10 years from now. And I just, I would like to remind people again, I'm going to note the important differences here. So I'm not going to be operating dishonestly. Otani is

a better base runner than Juan Soto. He famously stole 59 bases this year and a more powerful power hitter. Although as I've said many times on this podcast, I think that Juan Soto's power is underrated by a lot of people. That's probably about to stop happening. Um, and he did hit 41 home runs this year. So not like it was a bad showing. He's hit fantastically in city field for whatever that's worth. Probably not a lot, but obviously he feels comfortable there, but yeah.

And Otani was 30 when he was doing that and Soto might not be by the time he's DH-ing, but yeah, and Otani was 30 when he was doing that and Soto might not be by the time he's DH-ing, but yeah. But Otani was 30 when he was doing that. He is a better base runner, so his war is getting a lift from the base running value here, but he put up a nine win DH season, okay? You can still be, and he put up a nine win DH season with our existing positional adjustments Which I think many people including me would tell you are too punitive on DHS. I think that our DH adjustment is too strong It is too punitive. It's too punitive for first baseman, too. So it is not as if there is no

road to Good production out of a DH only guy. Now, Otani's season was incredible. And so to say, oh yeah. Soto hasn't put up a nine win season as a non-DH. Again, I am going to express the caveats to bolster my argument, but I think that, even when he has to shift to that phase of his career,

he can still be a wildly productive player for this club. And the guy who employs him has 21 billion dollars, and he is committed to spending 51 of that a year on Juan Soto. And it's not like the Mets don't make money, you know? You know what I mean? It's not like he's running the thing like a charity organization. I think that, you know, when a guy like Steve Cohen is like, I want to own a baseball team, some of that is about feelings. But it is also a, to my mind, convincing counter argument to all of the owners who cry poor because, yeah, he wants to own the Mets. He wants to feel the feeling. He wants to be Uncle Steve. We don't have to call him that,

whatever he may want. But he also is a guy who is like, famously a finance dude. They tend to make investments they think are going to be lucrative for them, whatever the feelings involved may be. So yeah, I do wonder, given how much other owners grouse about Steve Cohen's spending, whether this contract just not only setting a new high water mark, but really blowing it away setting a new high water mark, but really blowing it away will lead to increased complaints and desires for salary cap. Not that, I mean, there's plenty of desire there. There's always been a desire there. So I don't know that there could be a greater desire, but owner on owner kind of complaining or wanting to be reined in just because it's such a big headline generating

attention getting number that maybe it will renew calls for some sort of a balance here. And that's a separate conversation. That'll probably be a big fight to come CPA negotiations because it always is. And it probably will be even more so though, I do wonder because we're saying, yeah, in 15 years, this won't be as big a number and one would think that would probably be true.

I meant to mention, by the way, the fan graphs, social media accounts tweeted out the career projected totals for Wonsodo at the end of this contract. 103.2 war. Pretty nutty. Yeah. 103.2 war. Pretty nutty. Yeah. An all-time high 2,797 walks, 583 homers, 266,416, 481 slash stats, you know, widest

error bars you could imagine here, but that's pretty. But I do wonder how long it'll be until this contract is topped. Because we're used to just one deal raises the bar and then another raises the bar. But how long will it be? So I'm thinking I asked you to predict how long Wonsota will stay in the field. I'm going to give him six years. I'll say six years as a primary non-DH and then maybe there will be an intermediate period where he's splitting time and still

playing the field every now and then. And I guess he could always move to first or something. Yeah. Right. But yeah, I'll give him, you know, at least, at least half the contract until he's really glued to DH. And you never know, he could surprise me. But the other question is when will another contract come along that sets a new record?

Because A-Rod was alone at the top for quite a while because he signed that deal in 2000 and then he opted out of it in 2007 and re-signed for $275 million. And then it was after that, another eight years, I think, until John Carlos Stanton's $325 million contract. And I'm not talking about inflation adjusted. I'm just talking about the top line raw dollars number. When do you think someone could come along in top 765? Because if Otani couldn't come close unless you don't factor in the deferrals and Soto being so good and so young, it could be a while. And that's assuming that it's just up and up and up in the baseball market, which it has been for a while.

And I guess this deal, hard to extrapolate from an outlier contract like this, but it certainly doesn't seem like the Inkeys and Mets who of course are owners of their own RSNs or have been and have the big markets and the big TV ratings and all the rest, so they're probably not too stressed about diamond sports, etc. But still, this deal in tandem with all the others we've talked about coming in over expectations leads one to believe that these smart money-making people don't foresee the bottom falling out

of the baseball business anytime soon. So that's good, I guess that's kind of encouraging. But yeah, like how long could it be until, you know, like it, will it even be someone we, we could guess now or is it someone who's so young that they're not even on the radar as the person who could set the new record contract? I would sort of guess the latter. Yeah. I think that there's a possibility that put it this way, we at least haven't seen that person playing the majors yet and that it could be

a while before we do. I also think, like I said, I think it'll be a while before we really crest this number again, because I think you do need to have a particular kind of alchemy to bring contracts of this size about. And I think that you're right to note, like the part of what puts the Mets in the position that they're in, most of that is Cohen, but they are also in a more enviable position from a broadcast perspective. I think that a lot of the teams that might be potential participants in a market like that are just going to find themselves in a position where in order for them to clear a bar like that, they are going to need to have an owner that is like,

no, this is my money. I'm putting my money behind this contract. We're not relying on revenue that was coming into the club. Whatever you need for payroll, I'll do it. Because they might not be in a position from a broadcast perspective to feel like they can do this, persuade ownership that they can. And, you know, we'd have to go into the individual teams and their deals to be able to suss out like what if that is real and what if that is excuse. But I think it'll be a while.

Back to your earlier question about sort of what is this going to do to the dynamic between owners. One thing that we often see when the owners are coming together around CBA stuff is that they're like the big market wealthy teams and the small market teams and they find themselves at odds on things. And they tend to all find a way to come together because the group that they really are interested in getting one over on are the players. So like they tend to figure their way through to something that works. But I think that the combination, not only of this contract, but the way that the Dodgers have conducted their off season, you might see some fracture in the rich owner camp because it's not a good look for the Yankees that

they got got here. You know, like we haven't talked about that part and we can maybe save it for a later date because their off season is, you know, not concluded. You know, maybe they'll go out tomorrow and trade for Kyle Tucker. I don't know. But there might be a party at the table that had previously seen themselves kind of in coalition with the other big market favorable RSN contract teams that now is a little annoyed, right? And might find themselves at odds. But I don't know. I mean, it was enough of an issue that they called it the Cohen tax when they were negotiating the last CBA. So it's not like this isn't an issue that has been without

some audience previously. But I don't know. To be clear, I know that Steve Cohen doesn't own SNY. That was a Willpon created arrangement, but still the Mets have a solid broadcast arrangement there that a lot of teams can't count on. And they have Cohen backstopping them. So that helps a lot. Yes, of course. Right.

Yeah. And they have Cohen backstopping them. So yes, of course. Right. Yeah. So I think that Soto really like we've talked about how in control he is in the batter's box in an unusual way, because even though I think that the reputation of baseball as a game of failure is somewhat exaggerated, I think a lot of sports feature failure quite prominently that obviously whenever the batter is in the batter's box,

he's at a disadvantage in that particular plate appearance. Odds are things won't work out for him. But Wonsoto makes it seem otherwise. He just seems so in control that he seems like he is dictating the course of events and that even though hitting is a reactive activity, he seems like he's controlling it. He's the first mover somehow and the pitcher is reacting to Juan Soto because he puts so much pressure on the pitcher through his selectivity and then also his capacity to hit anything when he does decide to strike. He sort of approached free agency the same way. And I guess that is the case with a lot of high price free agents. They're kind of in the catbird seats. They're the ones who everyone is trying to court and the suitors come to them and try to pitch them and say, please sign with us. They're the ones in the power position there. But

once out of it, it felt like that even more than most just because he really had these billionaires over a barrel. He had them just bidding, just eaten out of the palm of his hand and he played the market well. Scott Boris is back again. Rumors of the super agents demise, greatly exaggerated. Who said it? Yeah. Who said it? Yeah. Who said that? I don't know, some smart gal. Yeah, I mean, not us that we had rumors of his demise. So we said they were exaggerated. We were saying they were exaggerated.

We were like, these rumors, an exaggeration, could call them exaggerated. And it would have been tough for any agent to fumble the one-soto bag. Yeah. Right. But he's done well for him overall so far this season. And quite impressive staying power for him that this A-Rod deal that we've been talking about almost a quarter of a century ago, same guy, same guy getting the commission from those

contracts. So it's just the Boris era really. He's been around representing top players longer than any top player has been around. They have come and gone and they keep cozying up to Scott Boris because he can get them the big bucks. But that is very much how it felt that everyone was just waiting for one Soto to decide with bated breath. Fun that it happened at the start of the winter meetings. I assume that the halls at the hotel are buzzing. I guess it inevitably overshadows anything else that could happen and there's been other

activity but all of it kind of pales in comparison to Wonsodo. But at least we know we're not going to have a dud of a winter meetings where nothing significant goes down. No, the winter meetings we should really be worried about are next year's because last year Juan Soto provided excitement at the end, right, with the trade. Yeah, this year he provided excitement at the beginning. Next year, he's going to be busy counting $765 million. So he won't be doing anything really.

I mean, it seemed like he was having a great chill night like social media seemed like Made it seem like he was in the pool when it happened and was hanging out So good for that guy because you know, it's kind of cold in Dallas. It's a little chilly here, but it's Warm and sunny wherever Juan Soto is so yes the stove Could not be hotter. No that is that is keeping us warm. All right. Well, I think we've covered from all angles, we talked about one transaction for about an hour and a half and there's probably more we could say. As you said, we didn't really talk a whole lot about the Yankees. And you know what? Yankees fans, maybe they just don't want to think about this a whole lot right now, or maybe they're coping, maybe they're consoling themselves. And it's tough because what's your fallback plan after

you lose out on Soto? You can certainly recreate one Soto in the aggregate if you have enough money, maybe, but yeah, it's tough. It's going to take a whole lot more roster spots and maybe not really less money to try to piece together that much war from many other players. So I guess we could talk about how they might be able to do that and what their next targets will be. I'm sure there will be plenty of reporting and rumor-mongering. So we'll get to that and all of the other signings that have been overshadowed and eclipsed by SOTOs, but some of them quite significant.

And New Hall of Famers and everything else. You will continue to provide the direct line to the winter meetings. So we'll do another episode soon. All right. It was indeed an Oops All Soto episode. This week would have been all Soto. Whether we talked about other topics or not, we will next time. If you're listening to this episode when it's hot off the podcast presses you can still sign up for Effectively Wild Secret Santa. Deadline is Tuesday, December 10th at 9am Pacific noon Eastern, so don't delay. You probably won't get as good a gift

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at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can find the Effectively Wild sub-edit at r slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show page at Fan Graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another action and transaction packed episode soon. Talk to you then. It's ballin' to perfect perspective Impressive for smart and impeccably styled It's the wildly effective, effectively wild

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