Last year’s Winter Meetings were a bit of a snooze until the end, but 2024’s kicked off in style with the biggest free agent this offseason, Juan Soto, signing a massive 15-year deal to join the New York Mets for what is likely to be the rest of his career. At $765 million, Soto’s new contract is the richest in the history of professional sports. The ifs, buts, and wherefors make the contract even richer, as Soto scores a signing bonus of $75 million immediately, has no money deferred, and even has an opt-out after the fifth season if he believes he can land something even more lucrative. The Mets do get the option to void Soto’s opt-out by adding $40 million to the value of the last decade of his contract.

The wildest thing is that it’s not really even much of an overpay. Some might compare it to contracts like the ones given to Albert Pujols or Miguel Cabrera, but those deals were given to significantly older players. Signing a player in his mid-20s rather than one in his late-20s or early-30s is a very big deal. First off, let’s run the numbers for Soto in Queens:

ZiPS moved to using a stepwise function last year, as there’s now strong evidence that teams are treating the first win as far less valuable than wins two, three, four, and onward. ZiPS evaluates a 15-year deal for Soto at $719 million. Yes, that’s less than $765 million, and doesn’t price in the opt-out, but it’s not exactly in a different stratosphere. For a bidding war between rich teams, the money made a lot of sense; the Yankees’ final offer to Soto was reportedly $760 million over 16 years.

Imagine if Soto were going to be 30 years old in 2025 rather than 26 years old. The change in the projections is massive, reducing the value of his projected contract to $312 million. That’s still a huge chunk of change, but it’s nearly a half-billion dollars off his actual deal. In fact, that’s not all that dissimilar from Aaron Judge’s nine-year, $360 million deal (a 30-year-old Soto probably wouldn’t get a 15 year deal). So you can see why Soto more than doubled Judge.

The best comparison to Soto is Alex Rodriguez, or more specifically, Rodriguez’s first contract. Getting the opportunity to sign mega-stars is a rarity in itself; getting the chance to sign them when most of their prime seasons are likely still ahead of them rather than behind is even rarer. A-Rod’s deal blew everyone else’s away at the time because of the near impossibility of adding a talent like him, and the projections at the time justified it.

Soto will be the face of Mets baseball for a generation. If the Mets don’t succeed, he’ll likely get as much of the unfair blame as A-Rod did during his Rangers tenure. Critics of A-Rod were always obsessed with the idea that Texas lost because of his contract even though the team had the largest payroll in the AL West without A-Rod. Similarly, Soto could put up a seven-win season as the Mets go 79-83, and the critics will probably forget that the team’s payroll will be somewhere around $300 million a year without their new superstar. That’s the price you pay when you’re the big dog, and Soto’s new deal will make him the biggest one on the block for the foreseeable future.

My colleague Ben Clemens will be back in this space very soon with a long rundown of the Soto deal.