The most important player in the history of the New York Mets glances dozens of times a day at a photo of himself in a Washington Nationals uniform.
For more than five years, Juan Soto’s iPhone lock screen has borne a photo of him hoisting the World Series trophy in 2019. He kept it when he rejected a $440 million, 15-year contract extension offer from the Nationals in ’22; when they traded him to the San Diego Padres that July; when the Padres, shedding salary, traded him to the New York Yankees a year ago. And that photo was beside him this week as he signed the largest contract in the history of sports, $765 million over 15 years, with the Mets. He will change it, he has long said, only when he wins his next title.
The Mets got him in large part because they convinced him that would happen in New York, and it would be soon.
Two days before Soto made his decision, Mets owner Steve Cohen hosted him for lunch in Boca Raton, Fla. Soto, 26, asked how many championships Cohen planned to win in the next decade. Cohen, who at his opening press conference after buying the team for $2.4 billion in 2020 said he would consider it “slightly disappointing” if the Mets did not win a title in the next five years, said, “Two to four.”
Soto liked that answer, he said in his own opening media session on Thursday at Citi Field.
“That’s what it’s all about,” he said, adding, “We look at everything, we look at the chances, and we look at what other teams wanted to do, and what everybody wants to do for the next 15 years, and I think we have the best chance to win here.”
Read that again. Sure, the Mets offered more than $300 million in real value more than the previous richest contract. (Two-way star Shohei Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers is mostly deferred and comes out to about $461 million in current money.) But they also offered, in Soto’s estimation, his best chance to win. When is the last time someone said that about the Mets?
This is the Cohen effect. The hedge-fund chief is the richest owner in the sport by a factor of three with what Forbes estimated this fall to be a net worth of $21.3 billion. But more than that, he is a collector of beautiful things. He and wife Alex own more than $1 billion worth of art, including works by Jeff Koons, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. Cohen grew up a Mets fan in Great Neck, six stops east of Citi Field on the Long Island Rail Road, and when he took over the franchise, he said he wanted to change its perception as a group of losers, the forever little brother to the Yankees.
That starts with stars. Shortly after Cohen arrived, the Mets traded for shortstop Francisco Lindor, then signed him to a 10-year, $341 million extension. They re-signed homegrown outfielder Brandon Nimmo for eight years and $162 million, and popular closer Edwin Díaz for five years and $102 million. They ran their payroll to $264 million (second in the sport), and then to $331 million (first). But no one has ever done a deal like Soto’s.
“One thing I’ve learned a long time ago,” Cohen said on Thursday, “if you want something that’s amazing, it’s going to be uncomfortable. It’s never going to be comfortable. And so I always stretch a little bit, because I know that’s what it takes to get it done.”
The unprecedented money mattered, certainly. But the Yankees were reportedly willing to go to $760 million, and Soto’s agent, Scott Boras, said he did not ask the other teams in the bidding—the Yankees, Dodgers, Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays—to top Cohen’s final offer. The Mets boast the No. 13 farm system in the sport, according to MLB.com, but the Red Sox’ and Dodgers’ are better. Los Angeles just won the World Series and employs four former MVPs. Soto loved the Blue Jays’ presentation.
But in the end, Soto believed in Cohen’s vision for his team’s future, in part, Boras said, because Cohen promised he’d be there for it. Cohen has said he sees his ownership of the Mets as a civic investment. He said on Thursday that he did not consider the off-season closed. “We still got stuff to do,” he said.
By that point, Soto was on the dais posing for photos with his family. But he heard similar language from Cohen during the negotiations, and he liked it. So he signed with the Mets, where he could change franchise history—and his own lock screen.
More of the Latest Around MLB
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Juan Soto Addition Signals It’s Time to Take the Mets Seriously.
