After Juan Soto rejected a 440 million dollar deal for 15 years most people thought he was crazy. This would have been the biggest contract in Major League history but in time we saw that he wasn’t crazy. December 8th, 2024 the Mets signed Juan Soto to their team for 765 million dollars over 15 years. This contract is becoming controversial in the sports industry due to the stupid amount of money offered to this player. Juan Soto is a great player but the question is, is he worth $765 million? Even the undisputed best player in baseball right now Shohei Ohtani gets paid less. What do you think?
To give some background on Juan Soto, his rookie year started when he was nineteen. His season ended with twenty-two home runs and being the runner-up for Rookie of the Year. At the age of twenty, he won his first World Series with the Nationals and has five top-ten MVP finishes over six full MLB seasons. Juan Sotos’s first New York team wasn’t the Mets, but the Yankees.
Although his stint with the Yankees was short, it was a time to remember as he and his teammate Aaron Judge both finished top 3 in American League MVP voting. The duo created by these two Yankees studs challenged all-time greats like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. In 2024 he mounted a 41 home run season 109 runs batted in a .288 average, and a .989 on-base plus slugging percentage. The 26-year-old stud from Santo Domingo finished a historic season and was expected to re-sign with New York, and he did, but not with the Yankees. When signing with the Mets, Yankees fans were in shock but wasted no time filling in the gap that Soto left. The Yankees signed Max Fried, a pitcher from the Atlanta Braves to form an elite duo with Gerrit Cole. They then traded for closer Devin Williams and formed one of the scariest 1 2 punches in the bullpen with Luke Weaver. The Yanks went out and added 2 former MVPs to bat in their lineup by signing center fielder Cody Bellinger and first baseman Paul Goldschmidt. The Yankees not only filled the hole in the outfield with Juan Soto leaving but potentially upgraded their pitching staff to the best in the league. In the end, the Juan Soto signing upgraded both the Mets and Yankees rosters.
In short Juan Soto is the type of player who will get things done. He will be a great asset to the Mets but unfortunately, I don’t think he’s enough to beat the powerhouse of a team called the Dodgers. Maybe in time when the Dodgers team loses some of their good players the Mets could finally win a World Series. What do you think?
