In signing Juan Soto, Mets stake claim to NL East and leave Phillies to wonder what comes next
Soto was always going to be a Met. For the Phillies, it's officially time to make something of their offseason.
Juan Soto would have been the third-youngest player on the Phillies last season. Orion Kerkering, Johan Rojas, and him.
You’d need an awfully powerful algorithm to predict what the baseball landscape will look like 15 years from now. But the next five are going to be interesting now that the Mets are staking their claim as a National League power.
It’s easy to see where the Mets go from here. Less so for the Phillies, whose six-year spending spree has brought them both to the cusp of glory and to an existential crossroads. It is easy to improve when you are willing and able to spend more money than anybody else in the market. The pivotal question for Dave Dombrowski and John Middleton: What do you do when that team is the Mets?
Soto’s 15-year, $765 million deal will garner plenty of attention for its shock-and-awe factor. To refer to it as a record is almost unnecessary. The Mets have guaranteed Soto $65 million more in total earnings than the Dodgers did Shohei Ohtani last season, and without the deferred money that Ohtani’s contract includes. Soto’s deal is more than twice as large as the ones currently enjoyed by stars like Mookie Betts, Aaron Judge, and the Phillies’ own Bryce Harper.
The real story, though, is the competitive implications. One, the Mets have added a player who has the ability and skill profile to elevate their lineup to best-in-majors status. Two, they still have a smaller payroll than the Phillies. Whether they re-sign star first baseman Pete Alonso or replace him with another big-ticket slugger, the Mets will enter 2025 with Soto, 25-year-old rising star Mark Vientos, and MVP candidate shortstop Francisco Lindor at the top of a lineup that combines power, patience, and base-reaching ability. And you’d be a fool to judge any of it before learning what comes next.
In a lot of ways, Soto’s signing means that the offseason can begin.
Of all the bonkers numbers that Soto has put up in his first seven seasons in the majors, the craziest is this: 26 years old, 44 days. That was the age of the NL East’s newest superstar when he agreed to his deal with the Mets on Sunday night. In normal circumstances, with a normal player, the rest of the division could at least take some solace in the potential burden of such a contract. But Soto is far from normal. Same goes for the Mets.
The union is one that anybody could have seen coming. This offseason was an intersection of variables and only one road leading out. The richest owner in the majors, a shrewdly executed fiscal gap year that left Steve Cohen with more payroll flexibility than any other executive in his class, an improbable postseason run that came up just short of the World Series … now was the time for the Mets to strike. By chance, all of these roads happened to meet in the woods where Soto stood alone, the rare free-agent superstar still years away from even the twilight of his prime, a plug-and-play franchise centerpiece with the skills to both lead and unite a lineup, stage-managed by super agent Scott Boras to reach the open market at an unprecedentedly young age, already with a World Series championship in hand, and a track record of team success at each of his three stops.
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In short, Soto was always going to be a Met. Cohen knew it, the Steinbrenners knew it, and Middleton knew it. For the Phillies, the best news about the move is that it has come early. With baseball’s winter meetings taking place this week, the top of the market has been set. Everybody who did not sign Soto can now move on to their Plans B, C, and D. We should start to get a sense of what it will take to sign a player like Alex Bregman, the Astros third baseman who represents the Phillies’ best chance to flex some additional financial muscle in a move that would substantively upgrade their lineup. Signing him would presumably necessitate a trade of Alec Bohm, who remains the offseason’s big wild card.
Beyond third base, the Phillies will need to decide whether there is value in the corner outfield market, where free-agent sluggers like Anthony Santander and Teoscar Hernández offer the potential to upgrade over Brandon Marsh and Austin Hays in left field. Are the Phillies comfortable with Marsh in center? Do they still view Rojas’ glove as a viable everyday option? The answers will need to come before long.
One thing is clear: The Mets are no longer a team to laugh off. We saw it in the postseason last year. Soto’s signing only adds to the suddenly serious nature of baseball’s longest-running punch line. The Phillies’ fate will be determined by how they respond.