Cody Snavely
Perhaps the biggest free agent since, well, Shohei Ohtani last season is 26-year-old Juan Soto, who is set to get a massive multi-year contract. Over the last few days, multiple organizations, including the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, and Los Angeles Dodgers, have met with the four-time all-star and his agent, Scott Boras, in Southern California.
However, after the Dodgers spent over one billion dollars last offseason, many insiders questioned how authentic the interest was between both sides.
Well, according to Major League Baseball insider Bob Nightengale, we have our answer. In Nightengale’s latest column for USA Today Sports, he states that there are truly only four main contenders for Soto this offseason: the Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, and Blue Jays. As for the Dodgers, Nightengale suspects they are trying to drive up the price and that their meeting this past Tuesday was more of the Dodgers brass doing their due diligence.
The Los Angeles Dodgers just won a World Series without Soto, and it wasn’t much of an inconvenience to drive through traffic across town, and meet with Soto and agent Scott Boras. The meeting helps perhaps drives the price up for Soto, and even more important, puts a little pressure on outfielder Teoscar Hernandez into re-signing with them.
With Soto projected by many to get a contract north of $600 million, having almost all big market teams involved is a dream scenario for Boras, including three teams in the same division with the American League East.
While the Dodgers’ interest in Soto seemed like a pipe dream, I won’t count out anything until Soto puts the ink on paper with another club. As Bob Nightengale pointed out, this situation is a way for the Dodgers to put pressure on Teoscar Hernández to re-sign sooner rather than later.
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