Inside The Pinstripes

Yankees Lose Juan Soto to Mets on Historic Contract

The New York Yankees have not managed to re-sign slugger Juan Soto, despite offering what would have been a record-breaking contract.

Grant Young

Oct 28, 2024; New York, New York, USA; New York Yankees outfielder Juan Soto (22) reacts after grounding out during the third inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers in game three of the 2024 MLB World Series at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images
Oct 28, 2024; New York, New York, USA; New York Yankees outfielder Juan Soto (22) reacts after grounding out during the third inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers in game three of the 2024 MLB World Series at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images / Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images
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The wait is finally over.

26-year-old superstar slugger Juan Soto has finally made his free agency decision — and New York Yankees fans are not going to be happy about it.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post made an X post on Sunday that announced Soto has signed a 15-year, $765 million contract to join the New York Mets.

He followed up in a subsequent post that this deal is the largest contract in sports history.

The two New York teams always appeared to be the two favorites to sign Soto, and that remained the case all the way up until Soto's final decision.

While there were rumors about how much the Yankees were willing to offer, Heyman has also disclosed that their final offer was $760 million for 16 years.

Alas, Soto decided that he wanted to head to Queens instead, making $51 million per year instead of the $47.5 million per year the Yankees offered him.

And according to ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan, "The deal includes no deferred money, sources said, and has escalators that can reach above $800 million."

While this is obviously devastating news for the Yankees fans, there is something of a silver lining. All the money that the Yankees had allocated toward Soto can now be doled out to multiple superstar free agents this offseason, which will allow the Yankees to address multiple holes on their team and perhaps even produce a more well-rounded Opening Day roster than they had one season prior.

Of course, there's no replacement for a player such as Soto — especially given that he would have been a Yankee for 16 more years if he elected to remain in the Bronx.

It will be fascinating to see where the Yankees go from here. But fans can expect them to be aggressive in the coming days.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers the New York Yankees, the New York Mets, and Women’s Basketball for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco, where he also played Division 1 baseball for five years. He believes Mark Teixeira should have been a first ballot MLB Hall of Fame inductee.

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