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The 26-year-old slugger jilted the Yankees and agreed to a 15-year contract with their crosstown rival that shatters every conceivable economic record in the game

Juan Soto knew he liked playing in New York after spending the past year crushing baseballs in the Bronx. He just wasn’t sure if he loved it enough to remain a New York Yankee.

So Soto decided to venture out onto the free-agent market to discover what he wanted most in life. When he met Steve Cohen, the billionaire hedge-fund manager who owns the New York Mets, he found his answer: more money than any athlete has been given in the history of professional sports.

Soto, one of the game’s elite sluggers, has agreed to a 15-year contract with the Mets worth a mind-boggling $765 million, with escalators that could increase his total compensation to over $800 million. It’s an unprecedented figure for a once-in-a-generation talent that shatters every conceivable economic record.

In the process, Cohen sent a resounding message that quickly reverberated across an industry in shock at the extent of his largess. Under his leadership, the once-hapless Mets are more than just the powerhouse of New York—they are now the pre-eminent destination for the brightest stars in baseball.

The proof is that Cohen outbid the Yankees, an organization not accustomed to losing out on players for financial reasons, least of all to their crosstown rival in Queens. The Yankees’ final offer was $760 million over 16 years, or an average annual value of $47.5 million, a person familiar with the matter said. With Cohen and the Mets, Soto got $51 million.

Upon first glance, the raw numbers suggest that Soto’s payday with the Mets barely surpassed the 10-year, $700 million pact that Shohei Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers last December. But that doesn’t tell the entire story. Ohtani chose to defer the overwhelming majority of his salary, significantly changing the calculation. The commissioner’s office considers the true value of Ohtani’s contract to be roughly $460 million, after accounting for inflation.

Soto and his agent, Scott Boras, blew past Ohtani by so much that the two deals hardly belong in the same conversation. Soto’s new contract with the Mets, which won’t become official until he passes a physical, contains no deferrals at all. Soto has the right to opt out after the 2029 season, unless the Mets agree to pay an additional $40 million over the life of the deal, raising the overall haul from $765 million to $805 million.

What’s remarkable about Soto’s historic contract is that by just about any measure, he isn’t the best player in the major leagues. He might not even be the best player in New York, at least as long as Aaron Judge is wearing pinstripes. Nonetheless, there are two primary reasons to explain why Soto commanded such an enormous sum.

The first, of course, is his otherworldly abilities. Soto is the closest thing baseball has to a living, breathing hitting robot. He almost never chases balls out of the strike zone—and then absolutely obliterates pitches inside it. His career on-base percentage of .421 ranks among the best of all time, while his .953 OPS tops all active players besides Judge and Mike Trout.

Soto’s rare combination of power and patience at the plate has drawn comparisons to Ted Williams.

But the statistic that ultimately made Soto such an alluring target had nothing to do with his performance on the field. It was his age.

Soto, who hails from the Dominican Republic, was just 19 when he reached the major leagues in 2018 and only recently celebrated his 26th birthday. Premier players almost never become free agents that young, which is why teams were so willing to break the bank for his services. In contrast, when the Yankees signed Judge for $360 million two years ago, he was already approaching 31.

The Washington Nationals, Soto’s first employer, tried desperately to convince Soto to accept a long-term extension while he was still under their control. They even dangled $440 million in front of him at one point, which would have been a record at the time. Soto said no. He believed he could do even better if he waited to test free agency—and he was right.

Though Soto took meetings with several interested franchises over the past few weeks, the battle to land him always seemed like a two-team race. Those two teams just happened to be neighbors, sparking a ferocious bidding war between two members of the MLB elite, with the balance of power in New York baseball also on the line.

The Yankees traded away five players to acquire Soto last year, knowing that they might only have him for one season. Their hope was to parlay that into a long-term relationship.

The team certainly put its best foot forward. Soto’s experience with the Yankees in 2024 went about as well as anyone could’ve imagined. Batting in front of Judge in the lineup, Soto posted a .989 OPS and blasted a career-high 41 home runs. He helped lead the Yankees to the World Series for the first time since 2009, hitting the decisive homer in their pennant-clinching win over the Cleveland Guardians.

The Yankees wound up losing to the Dodgers, but they and Soto looked like a perfect match. The question was whether Hal Steinbrenner, the son of George Steinbrenner, would be willing to take a page out of his father’s playbook and pony up the cash to keep him.

All along, Soto was clear that any reunion would come at a significant cost. Minutes after the Yankees fell in the World Series to the Dodgers, Soto declared that no team would have an advantage in the competition for his services. There would be no discounts for anybody.

That statement might as well have been a flare sent up to catch the attention of Cohen, baseball’s wealthiest owner. He has spent lavishly on players since buying the Mets four years ago and suddenly had the opportunity to claim his biggest prize yet. If Cohen coveted Soto badly enough, nobody would be able to outbid him. In the end, nobody did, and the Mets will be able to pair Soto with Francisco Lindor for years to come.

In his first news conference as Mets owner, Cohen said that he would be disappointed if his team didn’t win the World Series within five years. That was in November 2020, meaning 2025 will be his fifth season at the helm. Though the Mets advanced to the National League Championship Series this fall, Cohen has yet to fulfill his promise.

Now, with Soto on board, Cohen and the Mets are closer than ever—and it only cost them about three-quarters of a billion dollars.