Juan Soto’s first, and potentially only, season with the New York Yankees, was a resounding success. It’s not a coincidence that the Bronx Bombers made their long-awaited return to the World Series in Soto’s first year with the team.Unfortunately for the Yankees, the good news ends there as Aaron Boone’s squad came up heartbreaking short in the Fall Classic and Soto has reached his highly anticipated free agency. The young, charismatic slugger from the Dominican Republic is now free to sign with any team he wants, and he has made it clear that he won’t take a hometown discount.

What does Juan Soto want?

Soto has made it clear that he wants to earn as much money as possible, but there may be an intrinsic motivator for the young star that goes deeper than just the number on the check. Professional athletes are hypercompetitive by nature, it’s nearly impossible to make it to that level without truly believing that you are the best at what you do. Therefore, free agent contracts are proof of a player’s talent and value across the league and to their team. Soto believes that he is the best outfielder in the world, and he wants to be paid and valued as such, in terms of both annual average value (AAV) and total value.

Milestones are also important. A $48 million per year deal may very well be the highest contract by AAV, but a round number such as $50 million has much more meaning and emotional connection to it.

Soto’s age makes a long-term contract reasonable
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Most players don’t hit free agency until they are 30 years old, and a good number are on the wrong side of 30 when they reach the open market. However, Soto’s age makes him particularly unique. Because he broke into the big leagues at just 19 years old, Soto will reach the open market at the unfathomably young age of just 26. Soto’s style of play also makes him a particularly intriguing candidate for a long-term contract.

Soto doesn’t rely on athleticism virtually at all to be effective. He hits for a decent amount of power, but that isn’t his game. He’ll never be Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton, and that’s actually a great thing from the team’s perspective.

Soto has a compact swing and excellent bat-to-ball skills. He always puts balls in play and will shoot a ton of pitches into the gaps for extra bases.

The importance of milestones and precedent

No player in the history of baseball has signed a contract for more than $700 million. Shohei Ohtani’s historical deal was technically for 700 million, but when you look under the hood, it was really for approximately $460 million based on present value due to significant deferrals. Also, no player has a contract with an average annual value north of $50 million. That is going to be shattered at some point, and there’s no reason that Soto isn’t deserving of being the player to break that milestone.

The Yankees’ goal

The goals for the Yankees should be to sign Soto to our long-term contract that is less than $850 million in total value in less than $60 million per year. They don’t want to get into a truly absurd bidding war with Steve Cohen that could end up taking the contract’s value north of $1 billion and completely breaking the bank, but Soto also isn’t going to come cheaply.

This can be done if the team handles negotiations properly. that means no playing games or attempting to lowball Soto in the beginning, which could be seen as disrespecting his talent and value. starting things off on the wrong foot is not worth the potential to save a few pennies here or there in the unlikely event that other teams balk at nearing the $600 million mark.

In particular, if Cohen senses that the Yankees are hesitant to back up the Brinks truck, he’ll view that as weakness and turn into a shark who smells blood in the water. Cohen will then offer Soto a massive deal that will put the Mets in the driver’s seat and cause Soto to think highly of Cohen because of the assumption that the Mets billionaire owner values him appropriately whereas hell and Brian Cashman did not.

The perfect contract the Yankees must offer Soto

The perfect contract that the Yankees should offer Soto is a 15-year deal with an average annual value of $51 million per year and no deferral. This would give the deal a total value of $765 million. As we’ll get to in a moment, this might not be quite enough to get a deal done but it will certainly get things started on the right foot and set the Yankees on a path to re-signing Soto to a long-term deal that falls within the team’s ideal financial guidelines.

What happens next?

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It’s certainly possible that this deal by itself is enough to get the job done, but there’s a good chance that it will take a little bit more. That’s because Soto is a Scott Boras client, and the super-agent prides himself on getting every penny possible for his clients.

Boras is going to take this deal to other teams and use it as a starting point for negotiations. However, every team with the possible exception of Cohen’s New York Mets will likely bow out when they see this price tag and know that the Yankees mean business.

The next step for Steinbrenner is to ask Soto if he truly wants to be a Yankee provided that the money is right. Assuming that Soto says yes, the Yankees should make clear their desire to get a deal done immediately, but they shouldn’t have a problem with Soto seeing if he can get a better offer. What Steinbrenner must do after offering this deal is request that Soto bring any better deal he might receive to the Yankees so they have an opportunity to match. Assuming that Cohen offers something between $775 and $800 million, Hal can then tack on an extra year while holding the AAV steady at $51 million. That would bring the total value of the deal to $816 million. This should keep Soto in the Bronx for the rest of his career under the terms of a deal that fits within the parameters that the Yankees can realistically expect.

The impact this deal has on other teams

Extending Soto to such a record-breaking deal will have ripple effects that will be felt throughout the league, but the Yankees will largely be insulated from this fallout. That’s because the Yankees have the majority of their core for the next decade either locked up on long-term deals or in-house young players, such as Anthony Volpe, Jasson Dominguez, Austin Wells, and other young guys will be more likely to accept a long-term team-friendly deal if it is offered early in their career.

The Yankees can look down south to Atlanta and the type of deal that Ronald Acuña Jr. signed for inspiration to extend their own young players to deals in the range of 8 to 12 years and anywhere between $20 and $30 million per year. That should be enough to sign players like Dominguez and Volpe for the long run if it is offered early enough in their respective careers.

None of these players will be in a position to demand $50 million a year or any contract approaching half $1 billion. Frankly, if Jasson Dominguez becomes a $500 million player, the Yankees should be ecstatic. The bottom line is that signing Soto to such a record-breaking deal will likely reset the market for future free agents, destroying other teams’ budgets in the process while the Yankees will largely be sheltered from the fallout with few future free agents they have their eyes set on.