Day One of the offseason means the pursuits are underway. Until Monday, only the Yankees are allowed to discu s salary figures. However, other teams can touch base with his camp to broadly expre s interest and pitch their organizations now that the World Series is finished. The top free agent has gotten no shortage of attention. writes that 11 teams were in contact with Rickey Henderson Jersey Sotos camp by Thursday morning. relays that the Mets widely perceived as the top challenger to the incumbent Yankees were among them. Soto getting attention from more than a third of the league isnt surprising. There isnt a single front office that wouldnt love to add him. The number of legitimately plausible suitors is much smaller. Sotos contract demands figure to be prohibitive for all but a handful of teams, though Heyman writes that two unidentified small-market franchises were among the initial eleven. Still, its hard to envision Soto landing with a team that isnt a traditional behemoth. To that end, Heyman floats the po sibility of Sotos camp looking to top $700MM without any deferred money. While hit that mark before adjusting for the deferrals, the deals net present value was well south of $500MM. MLB calculates the Ohtani deal just shy of $461MM for luxury tax purposes, while the Players A sociation puts it around $438MM. Either number still represents an all-time record. The Ohtani contract is the only one in MLB history to top $400MM. Theres not much doubt that Soto is going to beat both versions of the NPV of the Ohtani deal. Doing so on a contract with a present value of $700MM is a ma sive ask. Itd require breaking the guarantee record by upwards of $240MM. Getting there would require at least $50MM annually over a 14-year term. Ohtanis deferral-adjusted $46.06MM average annual value is the only AAV north of $44MM. No free agent has signed for 14 years. is the only player to sign a 14-year contract, though his $340MM deal was an extension signed before his age-22 season. got to 13 years as a free agent going into his age-26 season, as Soto is now. Harper took a relatively diminished $25.38MM annual salary, and while Soto is certainly going to beat that, shattering the AAV record and signing the longest free agent contract of all time would be an ambitious ask. Of course, Soto is going to start free agency with extremely high expectations. The proce s seems likely to carry well into the offseason, perhaps beyond Decembers Winter Meetings. Every high-payroll franchise figures to be linked to Soto in some capacity. The general expectation is that therell be a huge bidding war between Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner and Mets owner Steve Cohen, in particular. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns has that the organization has the payroll flexibility to consider a run at pretty much the entirety of the player universe. Puma notes that while the Mets may shy away from signing players who require draft compensation, theyre unsurprisingly willing to make an exception in Sotos case. Hell decline a qualifying offer, so the Mets would forfeit their second- and fifth-highest draft choices and $1MM in international bonus pool space to sign him. Thats a non-i sue for a player of Sotos caliber. If the Mets are reluctant to surrender draft compensation, that could be a factor for their other free agent pursuits. Theyll be heavily involved on free agent pitchers. and will get QOs, but and are ineligible. Borderline QO candidates include , and . As with Soto, they could consider Burnes and Fried to be exceptional free agents for whom theyre willing to take a hit to their farm system. Thatll be a subplot in what should be a fascinating offseason in the Big Apple. Will Klein Jersey
Click here Click here Click here