How much is Juan Soto worth?

After weeks of speculation about where he would land, sought-after baseball outfielder Juan Soto, who hit 41 home runs and drove in 128 runs last season, signed with the New York Mets for 15 years and $765 million on Dec. 11. It is the longest and richest contract in global professional sports history; but while the Mets' rivals are likely disappointed they did not land him, there is no guarantee Soto will be worth the historic investment.

Soto, who is represented by prominent agent Scott Boras and played the 2024 season with the New York Yankees, debuted with the Washington Nationals in 2018, at age 19 — significantly earlier than most players reach the majors. Baseball's system of free agency guarantees teams six years of exclusive control over their own players, and many players are "reaching free agency later, often after their peak seasons are behind them," said Baseball America. This made Soto, who will be 26 for the 2025 season, a rarity: a superstar position player whose best years might still be ahead of him. Even Shohei Ohtani, the two-way player who signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers last offseason, was 28 at the time of the agreement.

Some teams, especially small market clubs like the Tampa Bay Rays, are worried by cautionary tales like the disastrous 8-year, $248 million contract extension signed by Detroit Tigers infielder Miguel Cabrera in 2014. The year that extension kicked in, 2016, was Cabrera's last valuable season before he "reached the part of the rollercoaster where the cars plunge with gut-shaking speed," said Sports Illustrated.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What did the commentators say?

Despite the astronomical value of Soto's deal, the reaction to the Mets' gamble has been mostly positive. "If you made me pick one hitter in baseball to have on my team until he retired, and told me money were no object, I'd pick Soto," said Ben Clemens at Fangraphs. While the terms "blew away even veteran baseball executives," Soto is "is the surest investment in baseball," said Sports Illustrated.

Others noted the significance of the Mets swiping a player out from under the nose of the Yankees, their storied cross-town rivals. The Soto signing "looks like the beginning of a golden era for Mets baseball," said ESPN. Soto's deal means that the "power in New York swings to Queens," where the Mets play, said Yahoo Sports.

Not everyone was sold. Because of the size and length of the contract, "it won't necessarily be easy for Soto to perform to the level of his salary," said The Athletic, citing recent examples of players like Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout suddenly declining. The Angels signed Trout to a 12-year, $430 million extension in 2019, when he was 26, and the slugger has been injured frequently, playing in just 29 games in 2024. The Mets likely hope this record-setting contract will see a different trajectory.

What's next?

$765 million is an extraordinary amount of money, and calculating a baseball player's value is more of an art than a science. Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is the metric that most teams use to determine an individual player's contributions to the club, in comparison to a "replacement player," which refers to a "Minor League replacement or a readily available fill-in free agent," said Major League Baseball. The WAR aims to "provide a holistic metric of player value that allows for comparisons across team, league, year and era," said Fangraphs, a site that tracks MLB statistics.

Last year, Soto was worth 8.1 WAR to the New York Yankees, using the Fangraphs version of the stat, which was the fourth-highest total in the sport. Soto is projected to accumulate 65.8 WAR over the life of his contract, according to the site, which they estimate at a value of $719 million. "For a bidding war between rich teams, the money made a lot of sense," said Fangraphs. The Mets, who fell just short of reaching the World Series last year, now have high hopes that Soto will carry them to glory in 2025, whatever the cost.