On Monday, Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported the Toronto Blue Jays were considered the “biggest threat” to sign Juan Soto outside of the New York Yankees and New York Mets.
But according to ESPN’s Buster Olney, few executives believe Soto is leaving the five boroughs anyway.
“I haven’t talked to anyone who really believes he’s going to sign with any team other than the Yankees or the Mets. I do think if you’re working in a front office, whether it’s the Red Sox or the Blue Jays or the Phillies or the Dodgers, you’ve got to do the meeting because the one thing you do not want to do is to go to spring training and an idiot like me is going to say ‘Hey did you guys call on Juan Soto?’ And your answer is no, we didn’t make the call. I mean, why not make the call, why not have a meeting?” Olney said Wednesday on TSN 1050’s First Up with Aaron Korolnek and Carlo Colaiacovo.
“But I agree with Carlo what you’re saying. Don’t get sucked into it the way it feels like a lot of people got sucked into Ohtani last winter.”
Olney said he believes Soto’s next deal will approach Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million payday from last winter and even pointed out that Soto’s deal could end up being more in present day value considering Ohtani’s heavy post-career deferrals.
“It’s going to be 14 or 15 years. And the team that signs him to the deal is going to use that structure to sort of spread out money over the course of the deal. I think that it’s going to be for around $40 to $45 million a year. So something in the range of $650 million.
“Soto’s is going to be worth over $600 million without deferred money in the same way. It’s going to be a monster contract because he’s a great hitter. An all-time great player who hits the free agent market at age 27. That just doesn’t happen very often.”
So if the Blue Jays are unable to convince Soto to head north, what are their plans? Olney said he isn’t sure what they will do specifically, but said he spoke with someone who thinks they’ll make a splash.
“I had a fascinating conversation with an executive in baseball who was at the general manager’s meetings last week. And before I even got a chance to ask him about specific teams he goes ‘well I can tell you this, there’s one team that absolutely wreaks of desperation, and that’s the Blue Jays.’ He said they are going to do some big stuff,” Olney said.
“But he sort of ran through it and a couple of agents have said that the signal they’ve gotten from the Jays is well we might not necessarily have a lot of money and this executive blasted that and said nope, they’re [going to] do some stuff. They are definitely going to go out and make some moves because I don’t know exactly what they’re going to do, but they are going to go and do some stuff.”
Two free agents the Jays are rumoured to have interest in are outfielder Anthony Santander and third baseman Alex Bregman.
A lefty power bat, Santander hit a career-best 44 home runs for the Baltimore Orioles last season and would fit well into a Jays lineup desperately in need of thump from that side of the plate. Except Olney said another team might present a major challenge if the Soto sweepstakes don’t go their way.
“I absolutely expect that the [Jays] would be in the mix for Anthony Santander. The one thing I would say is that if the Yankees lose out on Soto I think that means the Yankees are going after Santander. They need power in their outfield. They’re going to need some. He’s clearly the best No. 2 free agent option in the outfield. So if you’re hoping for Santander not believing the hype on Soto going to the Jays, then you probably should be wishing for the Yankees to get Soto back so they’re not competing for Santander.”
So what about Bregman, who would fill a major hole on the Jays’ infield?
“Alex Bregman wants more than six years. He wants a $300 million contract. I don’t think he’s going to get it, but I think it’s between the Phillies, maybe the Yankees, maybe the Jays, the Red Sox, some other team I think is going to be aggressive. So it’s going to be a hard sell to land him. But he to me is one of the domino guys who follows Soto,” Olney said.
Soto will headline TSN’s Top 75 MLB Free Agents list debuting Thursday, put together by TSN Blue Jays Reporter Scott Mitchell and Baseball Insider Steve Phillips. Check back Thursday to see where Santander, Bregman, and many other big names from a loaded class rank.
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