The Boston Red Sox are among the five teams who have reportedly met and offered Juan Soto amid his free agency. The other four teams include the New York Yankees, the New York Mets, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays.
One of highly-criticised moves the Red Sox made was to trade Mookie Betts along with David Price to the Dodgers in exchange for Alex Verdugo, Connor Wong and Jeter Downs in Feb. 2020. This didn’t bode well for the franchise both in terms of fanbase satisfaction and the subsequent results. While Betts has gone on to add two more World Series rings with the Dodgers, the Red Sox are struggling.
Phillies analyst Jamie Lynch believes that the reason the Red Sox has reportedly offered Juan Soto a big deal is to make up for the lost sentiments among their fanbase post that Betts trade.
“The Red Sox clearly want to make an impact this offseason,” Lynch said Friday on PHLY Phillies podcast (5:40 onwards). “It seems, from all the national writers out there, they are tying them to pretty much anyone and everyone. They have some PR to make up after letting Mookie Betts just go for free and ruining baseball. I don’t know—we’ll see. I buy it, though, that $635 million sounds about right.”
Red Sox gets hot on tails of Juan Soto’s free agency
The biggest contract the Boston Red Sox has signed anyone to was Rafael Devers, who inked a 10 year, $313,500,000 contract in 2023. Now they aim to supersede that number by signing Juan Soto to a blockbuster contract.
According to Hector Gomez, after meeting Soto last week where the outfielder also interacted with Devers, the Red Sox has reportedly offered a 13-year, $625 million contract with an average annual salary of $48 million.
I'm hearing a 13-year, $625 million offer. https://t.co/ex4JR6YYDy
— Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) November 28, 2024
Gomez reposted a post from Mike Rodriguez who claimed Juan Soto was interested in the meeting.
It is a big number, one that would bring back lost fans back in 2025 with renewed enthusiasm. As for Soto, his agent Scott Boras is reportedly inclined to settle for 15 year, $700 million contract which Jamie Lynch believes could eventually turn out to be the number the outfielder signs around MLB GM winter meetings.
