Over the last week, it’s been hard to keep up on exactly where the Dodgers supposedly stand in the Juan Soto pursuit.
Some insiders have said they’re out entirely, and others have said that while a Dodgers signing is unlikely, LA is still in the fold.
The general sentiment is that Soto will stay on the opposite coast, with the Yankees and Mets the unsurprisingly likely frontrunners.
The Red Sox and Blue Jays are also still reportedly in, but Scott Boras has said that his client has started eliminating teams from consideration.
Last week, Ken Rosenthal reported that the floor for Soto’s contract was $600 million, and that all of the remaining teams (though exactly who those teams were was unspecified) had offered more. The Dodgers probably have that kind of money, but it’s unclear if they would really dare to go that far when their deferred money has now exceeded $1 billion with Blake Snell’s signing.
According to Jon Heyman, four teams are now likely prepared to offer 15 years and around $700 million, and he called the Dodgers the “long shot” among the remaining crop.
.@JonHeyman says four teams could be in the ballpark of 15 years and $700M+ for Soto
pic.twitter.com/8RLMmoaCLX
— B/R Walk-Off (@BRWalkoff) December 6, 2024
Dodgers reportedly losing steam in the Juan Soto sweepstakes as offers approach $700 million
Anything above $700 million would break Shohei Ohtani’s record for the richest contract in sports history, even if the AAV comes out lower if the deal really does land around 15 years.
It’s more than a little patently absurd for a guy who is a phenomenal hitter, but just isn’t the generational two-way player Ohtani is.
The Dodgers are clearly working with something like carte blanche from Dodgers owner Mark Walter and the Guggenheim group, but would they really dare to break their own record and send their luxury tax penalties into outer space, just one year after signing Ohtani?
At this point, Soto coming to LA definitely feels unrealistic. Soto might’ve entertained conversations with them as part of a larger scheme by Boras to rankle the real contenders so much they’d drive up their prices, or he could’ve actually been interested, or maybe it was some combination of the two. But now feels like the time when the Dodgers will bow out.
Heyman noted that Soto could always choose to sacrifice a few tens of millions to “go to the best team” (or, in other words, choose the Dodgers), but it still seems unlikely. We, at least, won’t be holding our breaths to see Soto come to LA.
