It’s Juan Soto joining the Mets in the richest known deal in the history of the sport.

According to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, the New York Yankees slugger received the most anticipated payday of the offseason with a 15-year, $765 million contract with the New York Mets ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

Shohei Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million contract shattered any notions of how much a player could earn last offseason, but his record only lasted one year. He will still earn more on average than Soto per year, but not when you take into account the large deferrals in his contract. Taking inflation into account, MLB considers the Ohtani deal to be a 10-year, $460 million contract in its CBT calculations.

Soto’s contract is also the longest in MLB history, surpassing Fernando Tatis’ 14-year, $340 million contract with the San Diego Padres. By most measures, Soto is the new pinnacle of MLB contracts.

Soto was expected to reach new levels of wealth before he was legally allowed to drink in the United States, and expectations only grew as he developed into one of the sport’s most productive young hitters over the last seven seasons has ever seen.

By any objective measure, Soto figures to be not only a Hall of Famer, but also a member of the inner circle. Such players rarely enter free agency – and at Soto’s age of 26, they almost never do. Therefore, hundreds of millions of dollars are now waiting for the native of Santo Domingo.

All of Juan Soto’s precedents are in the Hall of Fame or on the way there

Pretty much every precedent for what Juan Soto has done up to his current age puts him in Cooperstown.

For example, here is the list of all MLB players with at least 3,500 plate appearances and an OPS+ of 150 (era adjusted) before turning 26 in the modern era, via Baseball Reference:

1. Ty Cobb, 180

2. Mickey Mantle, 174

3. Mike Trout, 172

4. Jimmie Foxx, 171

5. Rogers Hornsby, 165

6. Juan Soto, 160

7. Eddie Matthews, 154

8. Mel Ott, 153

9. Hank Aaron, 151

This is a list of seven Hall of Fame members and two active players who are eligible for Slam Dunk Hall of Fame cases. If you lower the criteria to 3,000 plate appearances, add Albert Pujols, Tris Speaker, Joe DiMaggio and Eddie Collins. Barring a terrible scandal, every single player listed above will be in Cooperstown in two decades.

There is no shortage of numbers that can make Soto look like a future Hall of Famer. He has the best eye for balls and strikes that MLB has arguably seen since Ted Williams and has been tormenting pitchers since he was a teenager. Any metric that captures overall offensive performance, especially those that reward walks, shows he is elite.

Soto also plays the game with a unique flair and seems to relish the higher-pressure moments, from his rookie year to the 2024 World Series, where he hit .313/.522/.563.

Juan Soto looked special from day one

Soto entered the MLB in 2018 as a top, but not necessarily elite, prospect for the Washington Nationals. There was no question that the 19-year-old could hit, but he was forced into the majors sooner than expected due to too many player injuries in D.C

At that point, Soto had only played eight games of High-A ball. Still, he was an advanced hitter from day one, hitting .292/.406/.517 that season and finishing runner-up for Rookie of the Year honors. He got even better in his second year in 2019, culminating in a World Series title for the Nationals.

One of the highlights of this series: Soto hit a fastball from future teammate Gerrit Cole onto the tracks at Minute Maid Park.

At this point, Soto was a polished, productive hitter with impeccable postseason bona fides. Teams rarely missed it, but the Nationals, through no fault of Soto’s, were doing so badly that they had to either sign him to a long-term contract extension or trade him before losing him for nothing.

Washington tried the former, reportedly offering him a 15-year, $440 million contract, but Soto declined (a decision that has since been confirmed). A trade to the San Diego Padres followed in 2022.

Soto joined a talented San Diego team midseason and they reached the NLCS, but a frustrating 2023 and the death of free-spending Padres owner Peter Seidler led to another move last winter. Again, this was no fault of Soto’s, other than the fact that he didn’t want to sign a contract extension.

The Yankees knew it was a risk to acquire Soto with only a year left until his free agency, but they took it anyway. The result was their first World Series appearance since 2009, with Soto hitting a devastating one-two with Aaron Judge.

Could Juan Soto’s contract fail?

Some concern always arises when a team promises a significant portion of its finances to a single mortal. There is no such thing as a sure bet, but Soto is uniquely primed to be an exception to those worries.

Everything starts with his age. Because he made his MLB debut at age 19, Soto hit the open market shortly after turning 26, which is almost unheard of among position players. The only good hitter to hit free agency at this age this century was Bryce Harper, and a) Soto was consistently better than Harper before his 13-year, $330 million contract and b) you’d have a hard time fall to find someone Philadelphia who regrets this contract.

While most teams hope their free agents can continue their success into their 30s, Soto still has nearly half of his 20s ahead of him. And he predicts he will age well, considering that plate discipline and exit velocity, the two areas in which Soto excels, tend to stay with a player late into his career.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Soto is infallible. He’s not a good baserunner and his defense is already so strong that he may end up spending most of his time at DH in the later years of his contract. His game is particularly one-dimensional; Its single dimension – hitting – happens to be the most important in the game.

However, all signs still point to Soto being a future Hall of Famer, as many of his best years are still ahead of him, and that’s why he ended up being worth so much money.