Generational free-agent slugger Juan Soto, the focus of intense offseason speculation about his next destination, is expected to make his decision by Sunday, Dec. 8, according to ESPN baseball insider Jeff Passan. Passan shared this update during an interview on the network Wednesday.
The decision will follow a final round of meetings scheduled for the weekend, as per Passan’s remarks.
“We’re in the final stages of a months-long pursuit of Juan Soto by multiple teams, and it’s clear that the final contract will exceed $600 million over a double-digit number of years,” Passan stated during ESPN’s afternoon SportsCenter broadcast. “Given Soto’s age—only 26—if teams extend their offers to, say, 15 years, we might even see a deal surpassing $700 million.”
No Favorites to Land Soto ‘At This Point’
Despite earlier reports suggesting the Boston Red Sox were the “favorites” to land Juan Soto, ESPN’s Jeff Passan clarified that “at this point, there are no favorites.”
Passan specifically mentioned the New York Yankees, Soto’s current team, as still firmly in the mix, along with the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, Toronto Blue Jays, and Los Angeles Dodgers.
“The expectation is that there will be meetings over the weekend,” Passan said, disclosing for the first time that Soto intends to have one more round of face-to-face discussions with the teams involved. “It’s after these meetings that Soto will decide where he’s going. By the time the Winter Meetings in Dallas start, we will know.”
The Winter Meetings, an annual event where MLB executives and players often finalize major deals, begin on Sunday, Dec. 8. If Passan’s timeline holds, Soto’s future will be resolved by the end of that day, with one team securing a generational talent who already ranks among baseball’s all-time greats at this stage of his career.
Soto Has Been Playing at Ted Williams’ Level
In a statistical review of Juan Soto’s first six seasons, Alex Speier of The Boston Globe highlighted his extraordinary performance, noting, “Through his age-25 season, Soto has outperformed most Hall of Famers, which explains why teams like the Red Sox are aggressively pursuing him, with a deal expected to surpass $500 million, possibly even $600 million.”
Speier’s analysis revealed that only one other player in MLB history has matched Soto’s level of impact over their first six seasons: Ted Williams. Williams, a Hall of Famer who played for the Red Sox from 1939 to 1960, is widely regarded as one of the greatest hitters in baseball history.
“At just 19 years old in 2018, Soto posted a .292/.406/.517 slash line, resulting in an OPS+ of 142 (with league average set at 100),” Alex Speier wrote in The Boston Globe. “His OPS+ has never dropped below that level, making him the only player in MLB history to record seven seasons with an OPS+ of 140 or higher before turning 26.”
Speier also noted that while Ted Williams surpassed the 140 OPS+ mark in each of his first four seasons, his career was interrupted by three full seasons of military service during World War II.
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