New York Yankees superstar Juan Soto isn’t closing any doors.
Soto, who’s set to hit free agency this offseason for the first time in his career, is open to signing anywhere in free agency. Soto has been traded by two different teams in his MLB career — the Washington Nationals and San Diego Padres — but made it clear he doesn’t have a list of teams he won’t sign with.
“We gonna be open to listen to anybody and everybody,” Soto said to reporters on Friday ahead of his first game in San Diego since the offseason trade. “We are not closing any doors. Whoever wants to talk and talk about deals and stuff, I’m open to deal with anybody. I don’t have any problem.”
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Soto was specifically asked about the Padres, and made it known that he will not shut them or anyone out in negotiations. However, he also wanted to emphasize the fact that this will be a future issue, and right now, he’s just focused on the present.
“That’s gonna be in the future,” Soto said. “We gonna see if we make it to the future. But right now, I’m focusing on 2024 and I’m part of the Yankees and I’m a Yankee right now throughout the 2024 and my goals are really clear — that is win a championship here.”
There has been a lot of chatter about Soto’s impending free agency all year, and even dating to the 2022 season. When Soto rejected a 15-year, $440 million extension from the Nationals in 2022, they traded him to the Padres. A year and a half later, when the Padres needed to shed salary, they traded him to the Yankees.
Now in New York, Soto is inching closer to free agency every day. He’s a client of super agent Scott Boras, who typically takes his clients to free agency to maximize their earning potential. However, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner said last week that he wants to keep Soto in New York for the rest of his career, and would have extension talks with Boras before Soto hits free agency.
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Steinbrenner complicated his comments this week when at the owners’ meetings, he said the Yankees’ $300 million payroll isn’t sustainable. Soto is widely expected to get a contract that could get as high as $500 million, and it will almost certainly be the largest contract ever for a non-two-way player.
Assuming Soto does get to free agency — meaning he doesn’t sign an extension this season — it’s hard to imagine any team with enough money to sign him not being interested. That will include both the Yankees and New York Mets for certain, and could include a team like the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Padres, who have been known to spend wildly in recent years, can’t be counted out either, and teams that were in on Ohtani — the San Francisco Giants, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, and Seattle Mariners, among others — might very well engage in the bidding war, too.
Steinbrenner and the Yankees may want to keep Soto in pinstripes for the rest of his career, but Soto and Boras will be very strategic in how they go about his free agency, one that could be just as wild as Ohtani’s in 2023.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.