The only winner of Juan Soto’s $765 million, 15-year deal with the New York Mets is Soto himself.
The Mets are actively part of the problem—not the solution. The problem being? MLB needs a salary cap. There’s nothing stopping teams like the Mets. As these salaries dramatically increase, we are just years away from the first $1 billion contract in baseball. That’s candidly ridiculous.
Nobody’s blaming the players here, either. Get every penny you can. But Soto is the only winner here. He’s only 26 years old, but he will be 41 years old at the end of this contract. He won’t be the same superstar he is today.
While he could deliver the Mets that long-awaited title, they could also pay for it. They probably will at some point; the question is just when.
How many times have we seen these massive contracts go wrong? The Mets themselves are still paying Bobby Bonilla. Or, if we want to compare across sports, ask the Cleveland Browns about how their record-setting contract is working out for them.
It feels like this salary cap crisis isn’t going to end until it’s too late. Or never.
Last offseason, the Los Angeles Dodgers gave Shohei Ohtani a $700 million deal over 10 years with $680 million of that contract deferred, meaning Ohtani will receive that money for way longer than just ten years. How is that allowed?
According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, who broke the news of Soto’s record-breaking deal, Soto’s contract does not have any deferred money.
The Dodgers were awarded a World Series title immediately, defeating the New York Yankees in just five games. Those same Yankees gave their superstar Aaron Judge a nine-year deal worth $360 million in 2022.
Sometimes it pays to buy a championship, literally.
At the time of his extension, Judge was the highest-paid player in baseball history. There are plenty of other expensive players, too.
Mookie Betts is on a $365 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He is not even the best player on his team. And now Soto will make more than Judge and Betts combined.
Mike Trout’s deal with the Los Angeles Angels is worth over $426 million. He hardly ever plays. Similarly to Soto, the San Diego Padres will owe Manny Machado payments of his $350 million deal until he’s 41 years old. That won’t age well.
Noticing a trend? These contracts don’t make a lot of sense.
Not to mention, it’ll eventually cheapen baseball’s product. It’s already happening. The greatest component of the MLB playoffs is that “anything can happen” feeling. The same isn’t true in the NBA, where you need a superteam to win a ring. In the NFL, you almost always have to have an elite quarterback paired with a mastermind coach and everything needs to go right.
The same wasn’t true for the MLB playoffs, where any team could get hot at the right time and win a championship.
The 2023 World Series between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks could quickly become a thing of the past. It’s clear that the Dodgers and Mets aren’t going anywhere, and you can never sleep on the pinstripes.
While baseball needs superstars, they also need to level the playing field like quite literally every other professional sports league.