Dawn of a new era

Morning Dose: Monday, December 9

☀️ Good Morning:

Juan Soto, the Ted Williams of our generation, is a New York Met.

Do we really have to say anything else?

I remember where I was when I learned Mike Piazza had been traded to the Mets. I was in middle school, playing Wiffle Ball with my two best friends — we would mimic different batting stances before taking wild swings to knock the ball into the upper deck, as we called the top of my friend’s roof.

It almost sounds made up, thinking back to that moment, when baseball seemed to rule every waking second of my life. A time when Super Nintendo and cable TV was the great threat to our childhood instead of social media and smartphones.

I remember thinking how special it would be to finally have a Met who was one of the players featured in MLB marketing ads, the ones that reached beyond the local telecasts, as if my own baseball relevance would somehow expand through the Mets’ relevance, knowing some other starry-eyed kid in St. Louis would suddenly be jealous of my team, and that somehow meant something to me.

It’s hard not to think back to that feeling, because it is close to the emotions I have right now.

And isn’t that why we remain loyal to this ridiculous idea of baseball fandom after all of these years? Despite the money, luxury-tax payrolls, or real-world responsibilities that try to pull us away from the game and try to cloud that idyllic picture of America’s pasttime, if you squint enough, if you keep your focus on what matters, sometimes you are rewarded with a feeling like this, like you are young again.

Juan Soto is a New York Met. He becomes the biggest superstar to join the franchise since The Franchise, himself, was traded away.

It’s an historic moment for what will come — the epic at-bats, the record-breaking seasons, (hopefully) the many team celebrations, the future Hall-of-Fame induction.

It’s also historic for what it represents in the moment. Signing baseball’s most gifted hitter is like handing Steve Cohen & the Mets a diploma. It’s just a piece of paper right now, a record-breaking contract, but it’s significant for the work it took to get here, the concentrated effort by Cohen, the years of anguish by the fanbase, this signing is a reward for that, but still not yet the full realization of a dream, only an important step.

It’s one thing to spend the most money, Mr. Cohen has proven he can do that. It’s another to attract the top talent, something that has eluded this new ownership group, until now.

The Mets ponied up the most money. As we have discussed over the past several months, Soto seemed determined to sign with the team that offered him one dollar extra. But once the Yankees pushed their offer above $750 million, regardless of the particulars that kept Cohen a step ahead, it felt like all bets were off. The money was close enough to give Soto the permission to decide where to play based on other factors.

Those other factors would seemingly work against the Mets. They were competing against the sport’s most historic franchise, one that had already reached the World Series with Soto and have Aaron Judge offering elite protection in the lineup.

Despite all the championships and monuments and things that have come before, this signing became about what’s ahead.

“I think Juan Soto looked at the New York Mets’ future and looked at the New York Yankees’ future,” Jeff Passan posited on SportsCenter last night. “And [he] believed that the Mets have a better future than Yankees.”

There’s an absolute joy in this news. There is also a realization that we are entering a new realm of fandom. The lovable Mets, the underdogs we just bonded over a few months ago — despite a bloated payroll, somehow still downtrodden — are slowly reinventing themselves into something new, something capable of stealing a superstar from the Evil Empire Yankees.

While it might feel like a piece of what originally made you root for the Amazin’, Ya Gotta Believe Mets dies with a signing like this one, it’s also a callback of sorts. The Mets were never an original team. They were always the product of something else, like the city they represent: blue from the Dodgers, orange from the Giants. And like all baseball teams, they are a heritage passed on from generation to generation with the expectation that each generation will do something a little better than the one before.

These aren’t your mother's Mets, or your grandfather’s Mets. They are your Mets. And your kids’ Mets.

Juan Soto represents the next generation of Mets baseball.

It’s going to be something better.

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🎧 Mets Fix Podcast

We migrated the podcast over to Substack to hopefully make it easier for everyone to find the latest episode. You can now listen using the Substack app, or any of your favorite platforms (Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud).

METS FIX POD (Ep. 46) | JUAN SOTO IS MOVING TO QUEENS!

In this emergency episode, Blake and I react to the news in real time.

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💰 He signed for how much?

15-years, $765 million, with an opt-out in five years.

That eclipses Shohei Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million contract in total value and dwarfs it in net present value. There are no deferrals in Soto’s deal, leaving it valued at $765 million, whereas Ohtani’s deal is discounted to $461 million.

But there’s more: Soto will carry a $51 million AAV, another record-breaking number. However, the Mets can reportedly void Soto’s opt-out by escalating his AAV to $55 million over the final 10 years, bringing the potential total value of the contract to $805 million.

And more: Soto will also receive a $75 million signing bonus. I expect he will make sure to receive that in a low-tax state.

Payroll: After entering the offseason with Steve Cohen’s first sniff of breathing room below the tax line, this signing pushes them over the initial tax threshold of $241 million. Depending on arbitration projections and estimates for players on split contracts, the Mets’ luxury-tax payroll currently stands around $250 million.

Stearns had a chance to swim the butterfly, strategically spending into the tax, before popping up for air to avoid repeat tax penalties. This signing means the Mets are deep-sea divers, they are going to be tax spenders for the foreseeable future.

Only the Dodgers ($333 million) and Phillies ($275 million) are projected to have higher 2025 payrolls at this point. Of course, there is still plenty of business to get done.

In terms of composition, the Amazins now have $103 million, nearly 43% to the initial tax threshold, tied up on three players (Soto, Lindor, Nimmo) through 2030, and a large portion of that for even longer.

Draft penalty: Since the Yankees had extended Soto a qualifying offer, the Mets will lose their second- and fifth-highest selections in the draft, along with $1 million in international bonus pool money.

🤝 The pitch

Steve Cohen didn’t become a billionaire without perfecting the art of a sales pitch. The Mets were the only team to host Soto at their owner’s home instead of meeting at his agent’s office in Southern California.

Pulling out all the stops: Jon Heyman details Cohen’s approach to wooing Soto:

Cohen had several workers serve lunch to Soto and his agents, by one count seven servers to about 15 diners. That’s a nice ratio. It was Latin food. Nice touch.

Cohen invited the guests — Soto and his coterie of agents, including Scott Boras — to the theater room to view a film made by the Mets for Soto. All the other teams used more typical PowerPoint presentations to make their cases.

Cohen brought to the meeting his wife, Alex, and father-in-law. He also brought Edgar Suero, the Mets traveling secretary, who explained logistics and family perks.

A final offer: Late on Sunday, the Yankees, desperate to keep Soto in pinstripes, reportedly upped their offer from $712.5 million to $760 million over 16 years. It seemed like a number that could get a deal done, but Cohen wasn’t going to let anyone outbid him. According to The Athletic, Cohen also upped his offer on Sunday, bringing the total to $765 million over 15 years, with escalators to reach $805 million.

🔗 Inside Juan Soto landing the biggest contract in pro sports history from Steve Cohen’s Mets, by Patrick Mooney, Will Sammon, Brendan Kuty and Ken Rosenthal, The Athletic ($)

What are the Mets getting?

I don’t need to tell you Juan Soto is a good hitter, but Juan Soto is, like, a really, really, really good hitter. Only five players recorded a higher OPS+ (which adjusts for the league and park in which they played) than Soto has before reaching the age of 26.

Those five players are straight from the corn maze of Field of Dreams: Ty Cobb, Mickey Mantle, Mike Trout, Jimmie Foxx and Rogers Hornsby.

*Note: You don’t see Ted Williams on that list because of the time he lost in the war.

If we put aside age and measure him against his peers, only one players has had a higher OPS+ in their first seven seasons in the big leagues.

And if we want to find a comparable Met, Darryl Strawberry is the closest we get. His 146 OPS+ in his first seven seasons (Age 21-27) nearly matches Soto. Straw hit 215 home runs in his first 3928 plate appearances. Only Dale Murphy (226) hit more long balls during that seven-year span (1983-1989).

Soto ranks ninth in home runs from 2018-2024 (Pete Alonso ranks fourth). The Mets aren’t getting the sweet stroke and raw power of a heyday Strawberry, but they are getting a hitter who does pretty much everything else better, which is hard to believe.

While he might not hit homers at the rate of a Strawberry or an Alonso, the pure count is still historical. Soto is one of only nine players with at least 200 home runs before turning 26. He is more than on pace to surpass 500 over his career.

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🚶 Walk this way

What’s most intriguing about Soto is his keen eye at the plate, which allows him to tantalize opposing pitchers, forcing them to throw in his wheelhouse, or risk walking him. Soto isn’t going to give away many swings.

That’s why his counting stats (30-40 home runs per season, 90-110 RBIs) don’t jump off the page the way you would expect from a player that keeps offensive company with Ty Cobb and Mickey Mantle. But when you reach base nearly 50% of the time you step to the plate (42.1% to be exact) in over 4,000 plate appearances, you are a freak of nature, especially in today’s game.

Soto’s .421 career on-base percentage is the highest among active players. Only two others are even above .400 (Mike Trout and Aaron Judge). Soto has eclipsed a .400 OBP in each of his first seven seasons in the majors, something only Ferris Fain (1947-1953), Ted Williams (1939-1948) and Roy Thomas (1899-1905) have ever done.

What about everything else?

Juan Soto is going to hit, and hit, and hit, and frankly, not much else.

He’s not Mike Trout, he isn’t going to scale the wall in center field, or win Gold Gloves, or steal a bunch of bases. Soto will probably be a DH for the majority of this long-term deal. Mets fans who made an argument for Lindor as the 2024 NL MVP over Ohtani will need to remember the counterarguments in making a future case for Soto.

Does that mean he’s not worth $805 million? One could argue the Mets are only getting half the player that Ohtani is, whose offensive prowess is on par with Soto, but he also pitches.

A unique situation: As we’ve talked about before, Soto’s unique market value is predicated on the fact he is only 26 years old. The Mets are adding four extra years of production, relative to what the Dodgers secured with Ohtani. That means there is less risk that Soto won’t meet his expected output, compared to if he was 29- or 30-years old.

And it’s not like Soto can’t do anything in the outfield. He has improved his lateral movement and has grown more comfortable in right field. While he doesn’t have the strongest arm in baseball, he has shown an ability to keep runners from advancing an extra base.

Projections: If you look at the latest ZiPS projections over the life of his new contract, using Dan Szymborski’s updated model that accounts for the marginal value of procuring wins on the free-agent market, Soto’s deal is priced around 15-years, $719 million, pretty close to the $765 million he secured.

via FanGraphs

Soto projects to be a Top-5-to-10 positional player over the next five-to-six years. And even if you adjusted Soto’s WAR value as if he was a DH instead of a right fielder, he offers so much value as an offensive player, you would only lose about 1 win per season.

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◾️ Former Met Michael Conforto is signing with the Dodgers on a one-year, $17 million contract.

◾️ The Dodgers also re-signed super-reliever Blake Treinen to a two-year, $22 million deal.

◾️ Dave Parker and Dick Allen have been elected by the Classic Baseball Era Committee to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

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🔗 Juan Soto’s brother posted a video on Instagram celebrating the news.

🔗 How did Juan Soto become Juan Soto? by Brittany Ghiroli, The Athletic ($): “Soto’s father, Juan José Soto, used to take his son to winter league games before he could walk. The elder Soto also played in a local league and they’d toss the ball back and forth for hours after. As his son became old enough to play, Soto constantly ran into the same problem: He was too advanced for his age. So he’d play up, facing kids two or three years older nearly his entire youth career.”

🔗 Mets have Pete Alonso, other free agency questions to answer after Juan Soto sweepstakes win, by Mike Puma, NY Post: “First and foremost, the team needs another starting pitcher (at least one) even after adding Frankie Montas and Clay Holmes in recent weeks. Sean Manaea, who excelled for the team last season, is a free agent but you have to wonder if Soto’s huge deal eliminates the possibility of the Mets offering a contract for a pitcher that could approach or surpass nine figures.”

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