By Andy McCullough, Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon

The most expensive free agent derby in Major League Baseball history ended Sunday night with Juan Soto, the incredibly talented and charmingly theatrical slugger, agreeing to a 15-year, $765 million contract with the New York Mets, as an informed person tells the situation The athleteis Ken Rosenthal. The deal, first reported by the New York Post, includes a signing bonus of $75 million. The decision capped a two-month parade of visits, counteroffers and ultimately a stardown between the two teams in the Big Apple.

Accordingly The Athletics Will Sammon, A league source said the deal does not include deferred money with an opt-out after season five. The Mets can remove this option by increasing Soto’s average salary to $55 million over the next 10 years.

Earlier this winter, Soto’s agent Scott Boras described his client as “the Mona Lisa of the museum.” Mets owner Steve Cohen, an avid art collector, has now added the outfielder to a team that was just two wins away from capturing the National League pennant.

The deal, which was pending and confirmed by people familiar with the situation, represented a new paradigm for the sport. Soto, 26, surpassed Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million earnings from last offseason. His average annual salary of $51 million set another new record.

Soto entered this offseason as the No. 1 player The athlete‘s Big Board and was set to receive a 13-year, $611 million contract. That was before a feverish round of negotiations that included valiant efforts from the Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers. In the end, the talks between the two New York teams faced each other. Soto rejected a 16-year, $760 million offer from the Yankees to bring his talents to Queens.

To put Soto’s success in perspective, consider that Fenway Sports Group purchased the Boston Red Sox in 2002 for $700 million. Soto will receive more than double the salary received by his former teammate Aaron Judge, who signed a 10-year, $360 million contract after the 2022 season. Soto will earn nearly $4 million more in 2025 than the entire payroll on Opening Day athletics in 2022.

After being traded twice in his career, he can now burnish his Hall of Fame resume over the next decade in Flushing. In his seven seasons in the majors, Soto has drawn comparisons to Ted Williams while amassing an impressive roster of hardware. He is a four-time All-Star and five-time Silver Slugger. At 20, he helped the Washington Nationals win the World Series. A year later he won the batting title. In his only season as a member of the Yankees, Soto hit 41 home runs with 109 RBI and an OPS of .989. He hit the home run that sent the Yankees into the franchise’s first World Series since 2009.

At the plate, Soto prides himself on his patience. Since his debut in 2018, he leads all hitters in on-base percentage (.421). He ranked first in walks in 2021, 2022 and 2023. He adds drama to his record performances. Soto doesn’t just take pitches. He grins at them, slides through the batter’s box and stares at the pitcher, his face expressing contempt or amusement depending on the quality of the pitch. The gesture has become known as the Soto Shuffle, a type of exhibitionism that often precedes hard contact.

His patience served him well as he planned his free agency. For Soto, the contract represents the culmination of a bet he made on himself two years ago – under Boras’ guidance. In the summer of 2022, the Nationals offered Soto a 15-year, $440 million extension. The deal would have surpassed Mike Trout’s 12-year contract extension with the Los Angeles Angels by $426.5 million in total dollars, but not average annual value. The franchise had faltered after winning a championship in 2019. Soto didn’t want to commit the rest of his career to a last-place club.

After Soto rejected the deal, the Nationals traded him. He spent the summer of 2022 and all of 2023 as a member of the San Diego Padres. To trim payroll for 2024, the Padres traded Soto to the Yankees. He proved to be an ideal complement to Judge, who won his second American League MVP in November; Soto came third in the voting.

Soto’s decision is likely to cause devastation in the Bronx and elation in Queens. The Yankees are expected to aggressively look to replace him overall in the form of upgrades at their corner infield and outfield positions. But it may take a long time for the pain of Soto’s departure to subside.

For the Mets, Soto represents the latest luxury from Cohen, who purchased the franchise from the Wilpon family after the 2020 season. Cohen, a hedge fund titan, has bankrolled the sport’s most expensive roster in each of the last three seasons. The Mets were eliminated early in the 2022 postseason and did not play baseball again in October 2023. Last summer, however, a group led by Francisco Lindor began a joyous run that showcased the core team’s potential.

Juan Soto now belongs to this core. And all it took was the largest contract in baseball history.

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(Photo by Soto: Harry How/Getty Images)