Juan Soto<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Over Thanksgiving week, online reports ran wild with rumors that superstar free agent slugger Juan Soto had already signed a contract. Those reports were false, but became so rampant that\u00a0Jeff Passan, ESPN\u2019s leading baseball insider, took to his social media accounts to shoot them down.<\/p>\n
But one online report stated that the Boston Red Sox had upped their offer to Soto, making a bid for his services that hit at least\u00a0$600 million over 12 years. That report, it now appears, was accurate.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, veteran Major League Baseball reporter Ken Rosenthal,\u00a0writing for\u00a0The Athletic<\/em>, offered his own independent confirmation of the report \u2014 adding that the Red Sox were not alone in their mega-offer to Soto. All of the clubs interested in the\u00a026-year-old Dominican Republic native have issued offers in the same range, Rosenthal along with reporters Evan Drellich and Brendan Kuty revealed.<\/p>\nSoto Decision Could Come As Early as This Week<\/h2>\n
\u201cThe clubs publicly known to be most serious about Soto are the New York Mets, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers. The two people briefed on the negotiations said that all remaining contenders have made offers above $600 million,\u201d the reporters wrote. \u201cThe expectation within the industry is that Soto will make his decision by the end of the Winter Meetings, which begin in Dallas on Sunday, and possibly even before the meetings kick off.\u201d<\/p>\n
So the Red Sox apparently still face stiff competition in their quest to land this offseason\u2019s top free agent.<\/p>\n
One problem they face, however, is that according to the\u00a0Athletic<\/em>\u00a0report, Soto has already begun scratching certain destinations off of his list.<\/p>\n\u201cWhen you\u2019re going through these things, he\u2019s just got a lot of information to meld through,\u201d Scott Boras, Soto\u2019s high-powered agent, was quoted as saying. \u201cWe\u2019ve had meetings with a number of franchises. He\u2019s begun the process of eliminating teams and doing things. Juan is a very methodical thinker, so we\u2019ll see, but I don\u2019t think anything is imminent in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boras\u2019s claim that no decision is \u201cimminent\u201d would appear to contradict Rosenthal\u2019s reporting that baseball experts feel Soto could make up his mind as early as this week, before the Winter Meetings begin on December 8.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0separate report earlier this week, by Randy Miller of NJ Advance Media, named the Red Sox as the \u201cfavorite\u201d to land the generational hitting star.<\/p>\n
How Good is Juan Soto, Really?<\/h2>\n
How\u00a0good is Soto? His career OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage) of .953 places him third among all active players, behind only his 2024 Yankees teammate Aaron Judge (1.010) and the Los Angeles Angels Mike Trout (.991). Soto ranks a notch ahead of the Dodgers\u2019 Shohei Ohtani (.946).<\/p>\n
Soto\u2019s career OPS places him\u00a023rd on the all-time list. He is tied for that spot with Todd Helton, who played his entire 17-year career with the Colorado Rockies and was\u00a0inducted into the Hall of Fame\u00a0in 2024.<\/p>\n
In 2024,\u00a0Soto\u2019s 41 home runs ranked fourth in MLB and third in the American League. His offensive Wins Above Replacement (WAR) number of 7.9 \u2014 meaning the number of wins a player is worth compared to a typical \u201creplacement level\u201d player \u2014 ranked Soto fifth in baseball.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Juan Soto Over Thanksgiving week, online reports ran wild with rumors that superstar free agent slugger Juan Soto had already signed a contract. Those reports were false,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Juan](\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Juan-Soto-Signing-Red-Sox-Bid-600-Million.jpg?quality=65&strip=all&w=780\")
<\/p>\n