Fantasy Baseball Today - 🚨Juan Soto Signs With The NEW YORK METS! - INSTANT REACTION (12/9 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

Juan Soto is signing a 15-year, $765 million deal with the New York Mets (2:30)! What does it mean for his Fantasy value? ... How early should Soto be drafted (6:26)? ... Should Mark Vientos and Francisco Lindor be drafted earlier now (13:10)? ... This is a historic contract, but did he deserve it (17:22)? ... What does this mean for the Yankees (25:05)? Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. A historic contract for a historic player. Juan Soto is headed to the New York Mets. Welcome into an emergency edition of fantasy baseball today on Sunday night. Here we are, Scott. December 8th. I am Frank Sample joined by Scott White, and it sounds like in the end, it came down to the two New York teams. But Steve Cohen got it done.

Juan Soto is officially signing with the Mets on a record-breaking deal 15 years, $765 million, the largest in North American sports history. One year after we got Shohei Otani getting $700 million with deferments, we get $765 million for Juan Soto. No deferred money, $75 million signing bonus up front, and an opt out after the fifth season in 2029. Scott, there are many different ways to talk about. about this, let's start with the fantasy side of it.

Because obviously he's going from the Yankees, the short porch in right field. He's getting a parked downgrade. I guess you can argue a lineup downgrade, but I feel like the Mets are not done. They probably still have a few other moves that they're going to make here. Talk about this move from Lonsoto in fantasy. Yeah, I mean, probably the Mets still have more to do, but he's obviously taking up a lot of their budgets. So I don't know that we can count on them bringing back Pete Alonzo, for instance.

But we'll get into that, I assume. What it means for Juan Soto and fantasy, look, he's Juan Soto. He's on a historic trend here early in his career, a Hall of Fame trend, which you can't say about many 26-year-olds. So you might think, oh, well, it doesn't really matter where he goes. He's going to be awesome. But with Juan Soto, specifically, these questions have already been raised in his career because he went to the Padres, his numbers fell off there,

it was really just at home at Peco Park where that was the case, then he goes to the Yankees, short porch and right field, normally good for left-handed power hitters and has this redemptive season. It was still good with the Padres, but, you know, the home numbers weren't very good. The overall numbers were dragged down because of that.

So going to City Field now, what does this mean for Juan Soto? I don't think it means much. Now, if you actually look at where City Field ranks by park factors and different stats overall park factor home run park factor home run for left-handed hitters you'll come away unimpressed it's it's more in the bottom half of the league and and all of those measurements but if you look at the actual park factor number it's kind of part of a big cluster in the middle and so the exact ranking isn't as important to me as that number it's basically a fairly neutral park city field.

And if you look at the other numbers we like to look at here, expected home runs by ballpark, according to Statcast, 46 is what Statcast says SOTA would have had at City Field last year, which is the exact same number it says he would have had at Yankee Stadium. By the way, he hit only 41. So he fell short of the expected stat at Yankee Stadium, and he fell short of the new expected stat at City Field,

I think he's going to be fine there. Historically, he has been fine there. He's played 35 games there, has Juan Soto. And in those 35 games, he has slashed 333, 466, 709, 12 home runs in those 35 games. So he's dominated there. I don't think it'll be another Petco Park situation. I said earlier this offseason that, you know, I was kind of on the first. at least in Roto leagues, whether to rank Juan Soto or Kyle Tucker higher because Tucker provides the speed element that Soto doesn't so much.

And I said it might come down to where Soto goes if he goes to another hitter, another difficult venue for hitters like Petco Park. I might drop him behind Tucker, but I don't think that's going to happen. I think with the Mets, I'm going to leave him right where he is and expect him to have a good season and a good, A good life, Frank, with three quarters of a billion dollars headed into his bank account. You're going to have a pretty damn good life. That's right. Juan Soto coming off a career year with the Yankees where he hit 288 with a 419 on base percentage. He had 41 home runs, 128 runs scored 109 RBI with a 989 OPS. He actually posted career highs in home runs and runs scored.

He finishes the fifth overall player in Roto and was the fifth best player in Head Ted Points League. Scott, the early 80p. for Juan Soto is 7.5. He is the seventh player off the board. How do you feel that? Should he be a little bit higher? Oh, it should be higher. And a points league, he's probably a top three player, right?

Yeah, Points League. And I specified the debate with Kyle Tucker was only for Roto leagues because Juan Soto Soto, he walks more than anybody and walks more than he strikes out usually and is a huge points league player. I think you could have him. And points leagues, you know, I still think I'm going to have Judge and Bobby Witt ahead of him because Bobby Witt's become a low strikeout guy, which helps. I'm not sure about Shohei Otani just because of the shoulder situation.

I'm going to leave Juan Soto forth for now in points leagues. But that's also where I have him in Roto, because he's a good bet for everything but stolen bases. And like a really, really safe bet, too. Like, we've never had, he's never had any major health concerns. He's on base so much that you know the runs are going to be very high. And it really just comes down to how many home runs he hits. And like I said, I don't think that's going to be compromised going to the Mets. So I think the home runs will be there.

The RBI will be there until just be a very stable choice with your first round. So fourth overall for me. Yeah, and as you mentioned, he really has not missed time. He's played 151 plus games four years in a row for Juan Soto. And he actually just continues to get better too. I don't think that this was just because there was a short porch in right field this past season with the Yankees. But he made some adjustments. He lowered the ground ball rate.

Remember, that has kind of been an issue for Juan Soto throughout its career. We always wonder, man, if he lowered that, how many home runs can he hit? well, he got up over 40 for the first time this past season. He pulled the ball more than ever, and his expected stats were insane. I mean, his expected slugging was 6.46. He was actually the biggest underachiever in slugging percentage compared to his expected slugging,

and he was just one of the best hitters in baseball. So if he just does what he did this past season and hits the ball as hard, you know, he's continuing to get better and hit the ball optimally for power, which is obviously a great deal for fantasy. And I'm glad you brought that up about the short porch because that is kind of the narrative. Oh, he went to this really friendly venue for left-handed power hitters.

But he was actually better on the road this year than at home with the Yankees. I think more of the turnaround for him was just getting him out of San Diego. There were something about that venue he didn't like. Who knows? Maybe he wasn't seeing the ball as well there. We've heard that come up in other situations,

hitters struggling to pick up the ball at various different parks. Maybe that was going on with him in San Diego. I don't really know what it was, but it has clearly been the exception now as he heads to his fourth team. It sounds like this doesn't bother you, but I've heard other people in the industry bring this up. And I think there is some data to support it. It's kind of picking choosy, like contract your data and things like that.

But do you have any concerns about Juan Soto? First year of a mega contract. I can't really say New City because he's still playing in New York. But, you know, just putting on a new uniform, sometimes there is pressure to kind of live up to that contract right away. Does that worry you at all? I mean, I can't get into the psychology of these players. I don't feel like,

unless they're wearing their feelings on their sleeve, you know? I don't think there's any way to read that. He just had to perform for a contract with the Yankees. one year to make an impression there and rose to the occasion. So I mean, maybe in retrospect, we'll look back at this and say, you know, it was a struggle for him to get going with the Mets. Kind of underwhelmed us in his first season there like Francisco Lindor did after signing a mega deal. Maybe that'll happen.

But I, it seems really guessy to predict that. And to me, a low probability guess. Yeah, looking at the steamer projections on fan graphs for Juan Soto, they have them for 286, 421 on base, 35 homers, 1009 runs, 96 RBI, 9 steals, 9 63 OPS. And again, that's a 50th percentile median expectation. And I think it's a pretty fair one. You know, he's coming off a career year. Maybe he takes a little bit of a step back.

But again, he's entering his prime. So, like, who's to say he just doesn't get better? That's not out of the question for Juan Soto. Let's take a quick break when we return. We'll talk about, you know, the rest of the Mets team. How does this affect everybody else? We'll talk about the contract, get some thoughts on that. If you want to see a Yankee fan cry, maybe I'll do that a little bit later on in the podcast.

We'll do all that right after this. Welcome back in, Juan Soto to the Mets on a massive record-breaking deal, 15 years, $765 million. That includes a $75 million signing bonus and no deferred money. Let's talk about the Mets lineup, Scott. As of now, the top four, we have Francisco Luey. Lindor, we have Juan Soto, Mark Vientos, and Brandon Nimmo, which is okay. I don't think the Mets are done. I don't know that they're going to bring in, you know, any other top tier guys, like a Pete Alonzo or Alex Bregman. I could certainly be wrong about that, but I think they

probably add a few other fringe players there. What do you think this does for the rest of the guys? Are you going to boost up names like Lindor or Vientos? I mean, if Vientos is batting right behind Lindoran Soto, his counting stats could be massive. Yeah, and I don't think we really know yet how they're going to make out their lineup. This is how roster resources projecting it. So it'll be something to watch, obviously, as we get into spring training. You would imagine they'd want to bat Juan Soto pretty high in that lineup. And you would imagine Mark Viantos would not be in front of him, but somewhere behind him.

And so, yeah, this obviously raises his RBI potential. To the degree we buy into Mark Vientos and his strikeout rate spiked in the second half. So I have some concerns. I know he continued to perform well. He had some big moments in the postseason. But I'm not totally sold on Mark Vientos being an everyday caliber bat for as good as he was this past year. I think what I do buy is that Mark Viantos is probably sliding over to first base and Brett Beatty is probably getting another shot at third base.

He's obviously, has a big prospect pedigree, has always performed well in the miners, has some good data to back that up, and deserves another shot somewhere. There's been some talk about him being on the trade market. maybe he ultimately gets traded. But again, Juan Soda's taken up a big portion of the budget. The Mets already brought in Clay Holmes just this weekend on a pretty sizable deal.

So I'm kind of skeptical that that much more is going to happen. Could be wrong, but that's my feeling. Yeah. Again, I think they can maybe make some moves around the fringes, you know, bring in some veteran type guys. Carlos Santana's out there. Maybe they just leave Vientos at third base and, you know, just bring in some.

someone like that. The back half of this lineup for what it's worth as of now, it's a little shaky. You know, after we get past Nemo, it's Starling Marte, Jeff McNeil, Tyrone Taylor, Francisco Alvarez, and Brett Beatty. That's according to Rosser Resource, things can change. They have young players, prospects who look like they could be ready to contribute as well. So maybe a Luis Anhelecuna, you know, Ronnie Maricio coming back from injury. Maybe those guys can factor in as well. Yeah, I mean, Mauricio makes for a good backup plan at third base. if Brett Beatty doesn't work out. Yeah.

He looked like he was ready to seize a job before tearing his ACL, I believe it was, last offseason. That sounds right. The price tag Scott for Francisco Indoor, his ADP is right around 16. Do you think that needs to go up here because he's another one where, you know, Soto's batting behind him.

Can he get even better? You know, can he score 115, 120 runs? We just saw, you know, Judge and Soto back to back put up video game numbers in terms of We did. I don't think Francisco Lindor is quite on their level. Good as he is. I mean, he's a guy who's probably Hall of Famebound himself someday. But he had a 344 on base percentage.

Last year has a 342 on base percentage for his career. That's compared to Judge, you know, he was 458 last year. And Juan Soto is always over 400, well over 400, usually himself. So I can't see him reaching the run totals that they put up, batting back to back in the Yankees lineup. It couldn't hurt, though. It can't hurt to have Juan Soto hitting behind you. I already liked Francisco Lindor as a late first rounder,

and I think more people might with this news. All right. Let's quickly talk about the contract here, Scott, because obviously the magnitude here of just what this means moving forward. I mean, it's not often we get a player of this caliber hitting the market at 26 years old. So that's why this contract is as massive as it is. And some people say, well, he doesn't deserve more money than Otani. He doesn't pitch and he doesn't hit and he doesn't play defense and all this.

In 15 years, this contract ends when he's 41 years old. And he's making a quarter of a billion dollars over the course of this. Like, I will never get mad at players for trying to get the most money that they possibly can. it's, if we were in his position, we would do the exact same thing, or at least I would. But what do you think just about the contract and the, really the magnitude? This kind of resets everything. Yeah, I have been a little surprised by some of the reactions from Yankees fans. I don't even know that they're all Yankees fans, just some people online to the numbers being thrown around for Juan Soto.

And specifically whether or not the Yankees should bring back. I'm kind of still of the belief that the Yankees can outspend anybody if they really want to. Maybe I'm wrong, but the list of teams that can outspin the Yankees is pretty short. So I was feeling like just given the very clear impact that Juan Soto had, I mean, their, their offense was in dire straits in 2023. And then they get to the World Series with Juan Soto and obviously a good offense. So just the impact he made is so crystal clear. And like you said, 26 years old, just entering his prime already on a Hall of Fame track. And you know, you say it's not often that happens.

Speaking in general terms, it's not often that a player of that caliber enters the free agent market at 26. But it's pretty much never that a player as good as one Soto-specific. specifically enters the free agent market ever, much less at age 26. I was looking at this, Kyle Glazer of MLB.com, he did a comparison, side-by-side comparison, Juan Soto versus Bryce Harper, when Harper entered free agency, also coincidentally at 26. And he was kind of comparing how close their numbers were through that age. I'm not sure they're really that close, because you know what, Juan Soto, through that age, enter, free agency 26 had 33 points of on-base percentage on Bryce Harper,

33 extra points of on-base. Like, Harper's a pretty good on-base guy himself. 33 points. That's the difference between a 347 OBP and a 380 OBP. Not that those are the actual numbers, but like, it is stark. And it just shows you how historic of a player we're talking about here with Juan Soto. what makes it hard to say he deserves this. He deserves to be the one setting the record

is because, of course, the player whose record he's breaking, Shohei Otani, is himself a one-of-a-kind historic player for different reasons. And his 700 million blew away everything that came before, and a lot of it was deferred, right? So it's not just the total number here for Juan Soto, but he's he's when you factor in that none of it's deferred and that it's that many more millions

and that he doesn't pitch as well like Shohei Otani does is does he deserve more than Otani? That seems a little strange. You know, these record setting contracts, they never hold the record for long and already one year later one, so do is breaking it. I guess that's kind of a difficult pill to swallow.

But if we're just saying, does Juan Soto, we're just leaving Shohei Otani out, does Juan Soto compared to other free agent hitters, even other 26-year-old free agent hitters, deserve a record-setting amount of money, deserve to sign for 12 to, in this case, 15 years? I would say yes. I mean, 26, for as stable as he's been,

as soon as he entered the league, age 19, he was one of the best hitters in baseball, best offensive players in baseball, doing the most value, getting on base better than anyone else, which is the most valuable thing a hitter could do. Clearly, from the very beginning, very consistently, and you have him from age 26 to,

okay, 41 in this case, but when do you expect that to drop off? Probably mid-30s? You're going to get prime. won Soto for so much of that contract. And he's going to make such a big difference to your offense, as Yankees fans should well know. And it really was the perfect storm, Scott,

of just the events you get four major markets, including two New York teams bidding up against each other for his services. You know, the Blue Jays, the Red Sox, they were kind of on the outside looking in. The Dodgers were, you know, rumored to be poking around as well. But it really just what, it really was the perfect

just events coming together for Wantsota to get this deal. I'm not sure that, I mean, we're really going to take a, like, again, a historic player hitting free agency around this age to see anything close to this. Like, I don't think this is just going to become the norm by any mean, obviously. No. No, that's kind of what I was getting at. Maybe I used too many words to say it, but I, it, some fans, some Yankees fans, just don't seem to recognize.

how special Juan Soto is. That was the impression I was getting from some of these conversations that were happening online. And he is. He is. He's 33 on base points better than Bryce Harper through the same age.

And again, Bryce Harper, two-time MVP, a guy who gets on base a lot himself. Yeah, and there are some other contract details coming out. And I'm sure a couple other things will leak out over the next couple days. But according to Mark Fein-Sand, the Mets will have the ability to void Soto's opt-out clause after the 2029 season if they boost the average annual value over the final 10 years of his deal

from $51 million to $55 million per year. And of course, that came from, he credited Jorge Castillo for providing that information as well. So, yeah, there are escalators, man. Like this deal could get up to $800 million. I think that's what Jeff Passon originally tweeted out. Yeah. We could also opt out after $20 million. I don't know if we mentioned that.

Yeah, we did. But again, as I just mentioned, he can kind of void that by, the Mets can void that opt out by adding more money over the final 10 years. And I want to give credit. I want to, you know, congratulate Mets fans.

I mean, obviously you're getting an amazing player. There's kind of, there's a shift happening. It feels that way. Not in terms of like, whatever, Yankee Mets power in New York, but just having an owner with this much money in the sport that can make a move like this, right? I mean, it's kind of putting the Mets back on the map

and they obviously just made it to the NLCS. They had a really successful season. It seems like they have a good GM, a great manager in place. So yeah, it's an exciting time to be a Met fan, which brings me to the final talking point, Scott. You know, I've put on my brave face for most of this podcast. It hurts.

It hurts. There is no doubt. Everyone sees everything behind me, whether you're watching this for the first time or if you've been around for a while, you know, I'm a Yankee fan. It hurts, man. You know, I tweeted, I texted you guys,

like my heart hurts. I tweeted, I am dead inside, Michael Scott Giff. No matter what way you want to paint this, and I know you brought up fans online saying, well, now you could take all those money and allocate it. The Yankees do have a lot of holes. There's no doubt about it. A, do you trust them to sign the right players?

You know, I've heard Christian Walker and Max Fried and Alex Bregman and maybe it works out. Maybe they win a World Series, but maybe Max Fried's arm falls off or maybe Christian Walker is out of baseball in like a year or two from now. It's just those guys are not Juan Soto. So yes, this hurts. And I feel like anyone who's kind of saying,

well, yeah, we can, you know, take all that money and sign a bunch of players. It kind of just feels like a coping mechanism, Scott. And I'm not really here for it. Yeah. And I, you know, I saw a lot of pre-cooping from Yankees fans. I'm trying to see if I could find the tweet here. It was basically some, I think, a writer for the Blue Jays was saying now that Juan Soto is off the market, the Blue Jays can turn their attention to signing a couple starting pitchers in a first basement or I guess a third basement because they got Guerrero, an outfielder.

Like it was a whole list of needs that the Blue Jays had as if they're going to be able to fill all those needs on the free agent market. And seeing Yankees fans talk the same way tells me these people. are just living in and fantasy land because it's you can't get all those players right if everyone if every fan base that was kind of in on Soto here thinks that they're going to do that it's not going to happen you're going to pull it's like pulling an inside straight because yeah it's not like you're the only one bidding it's not like you just have to reach a theoretical number the other teams want these players to realistically maybe the Yankees can get two marquee free agents but they're not going to be able to fill four or five needs and recreate Juan Soto and the aggregate

to paraphrase Moneyball. Yeah. Not with marquee free agents anyway. And yeah, so just put that idea out of your mind. It's not realistic. And that's a shame because it's going to be hard for them. It's going to be hard for them to make up for this loss of Soto without. some of the players who are already there showing considerable improvement.

Maybe Jason Dominguez breaks out. Maybe Anthony Volpe finally takes that step forward. They do that. And maybe they bring in a Christian Walker. I don't know. I don't know. There's still a lot to work with there, but you can't really replace Wonsodo,

which is why I thought a team with the resources that the Yankees had should do whatever it takes to bring it back. You can always go the thrifty route. around the one-man wrecking crew, superstar, all-timer kind of player, and piece together a pretty good team that way. But to not have that guy and have to rely on, you know, 34-year-olds, which is I think what Christian Walker is, and guys who are coming up for the minors on their second or for their second or third run

and hoping they finally break through. Like, that's hard. That's a harder way to live than just plugging the superstar in there. It's a weird spot to be in, too, because you have Judge and Garrett Cole in their prime now. Like, you can argue Garikohl's already passed his prime

and he's dealt with injuries the past couple of years and you need to win now. You have to maximize these MVP seasons from Aaron Judge and, you know, a Cy Young season a year ago from Garik Cole, but those guys aren't getting any younger. I mean, I think Judge is still going to be awesome for the next couple of years. But you know, you really need to kind of strike now

while you have those guys. And I'm not asking for any sympathy. I understand people hate Yankees fans and whatever. You have your right to, if you want to continue to hate the Yankees and their fans, go ahead and do that. But I don't know. Let us know in the comments. What do the Yankees do from here?

And now that they are not bringing back Wonsoto. But Scott, I think that pretty much covers it, unless you have anything else you want to hit on. I think that pretty much covers it for me, too. All right. Soto off the market. I guess I would just say, we might be in for a busy couple weeks here.

It's already been a busy weekend. I wish these GMs would work during the week like regular people. But yeah, I think it's about to get even busier now that all these teams just found out they're not getting Wonsoto. It's a domino effect. That's what we heard all along. I think there could be, you know, the floodgates are open, so to speak, with other free agents now that they know. All right, Wonsoto's off the market. He's going to the Mets.

All right. The Yankees need players. socks need players. The Blue Jays want to make a splash. So yeah, I think there's going to be a lot of movement here throughout the winter meetings over the next couple days. Again, Juan Soto headed to the Mets on a record-breaking deal, $15 years, $765 million. We are going to wrap there for Scott. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave us a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again on Tuesday. Maybe sooner. Who knows?

Bye-bye.