In the now-historic free agent negotiations with 26-year-old slugger Juan Soto, the New York Yankees went nearly everywhere the Mets did, even blowing past the previous contract record of $700 million, set by Los Angeles Dodgers' two-way star Shohei Ohtani, in the club's final bid for the four-time All-Star.
But the Yankees' reluctance to budge on one small detail, which the Mets acquiesced to, may have made a difference in Soto agreeing to change boroughs for the record, $765 million deal.
The Mets offered Soto and his family a suite at Citi Field while the Yankees "wouldn't budge" on the suite, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post. New York, which had given suites to five-time World Series champion Derek Jeter and two-time American League MVP Aaron Judge on the condition that they pay for them, didn't feel right giving Soto the suite for nothing, instead offering him one at Yankee Stadium at a discount.
Heyman also reported that an incident with an overzealous Yankees security guard seemed to irk Soto earlier in the year, though the club apologized to him and he "forgave them." But with the offer of the suite at no cost and the knowledge of where the Yankees may have briefly overstepped their boundaries, the Mets seemingly appealed to Soto's family, as much as they did to the generational slugger.
In addition to the suite, the Mets' offer included a $75 million signing bonus, compared to the Yankees' $60 million, a fifth-year opt-out, which if voided by the club would escalate Soto's average annual value from $51 million to $55 million over the last 10 years of the deal, a no-trade clause and no deferrals (The Yankees' offer also included no deferrals).
Money talks, and it's clear that these perks certainly sweetened the pot for Soto. But most of all, it seems that Cohen, the richest owner in baseball hell-bent on winning, and Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns, sold Soto on the club's vision for the future, which may have spoken louder than any of the riches the superstar player was offered.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as How Yankees’ Refusal to Give Juan Soto a Luxury Suite Helped Lead to Mets Deal.
