Unless it is Steve Cohen’s team, every club has payroll limits, short and long term. And even Cohen’s Mets have a finite quantity of prospects, particularly valuable ones.
So when a club decides to pursue a player such as Juan Soto, it must ask: Is this the right time in a contention cycle to give up both the young players and the dollars necessary? Because once invested, it is gone. Timing matters.
And in Soto’s case, he is a free agent after the 2024 season. So everything you are giving up guarantees just 162 regular-season games of control. Therefore, it adds pressure on whichever team obtains Soto — and gives up a haul — to retain him for more than just the 2024 campaign.
Which only gives Scott Boras more leverage next offseason when he almost certainly will take Soto into free agency. Boras also is wise enough to know if, say, the Yankees obtain Soto this winter to play the Cohen game next winter (“Are you really going to let him go to Queens?”) to juice up the price tag.
And, remember, Soto-Boras already rejected a 15-year, $440 million overture from the Nationals. And as one AL executive said, “Everyone knows where Scott built the bar, and it is not going to go lower.”[
nypost.com]
