Red Sox Predicted to Sign Juan Soto With Record-Breaking $675 Million Contract

The Boston Red Sox promised a “full throttle” offseason last year and failed to deliver. But they could make up for it in a big way soon.

The team is among the finalists to secure generational talent Juan Soto on a long-term contract as the bidding reaches the $600 million mark, according to The Athletic. They are now competing with the New York Mets, New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers to get a deal across the finish line and bring the most coveted free agent in baseball to Boston.

Projecting the price tags for the current free agency class for Bleacher Report, Joel Reuter predicted the Red Sox would ultimately prevail by landing Soto on a 15-year, $675 million deal — and that things could wrap up in the near future.

“All signs point to him making his decision some time between now and the conclusion of the annual winter meetings set to take place next week, and that should set off a flurry of secondary activity on the offseason market,” Reuter added.

That might be a lot of money to allocate to a single player, but it’s hard to say what Soto’s ceiling might be. At just 26 years old, he’s earned four All-Star nods, five Silver-Slugger Awards and Most Valuable Player Award votes in five different seasons.

His career .421 on-base percentage makes him the active leader in Major League Baseball and he just concluded arguably his best offensive season to date with a .288/.419/.569 slash line, 41 homers and 109 RBI. Adding him alongside star infielder Rafael Devers and the impressive crop of young talent in the Red Sox farm system would instantly push Boston back into World Series contention for years to come.

The $675 million price tag would also mark a new record in baseball for players who do not pitch, eclipsed only by the $700 million contract that two-way star Shohei Ohtani received from the Los Angeles Dodgers ahead of this past season.

“Even if his contract does not end up exceeding the $700 million deal Shohei Ohtani signed last offseason, so much of that contract was deferred that the present-day value of the deal was assessed at roughly $460 million, which puts into perspective the type of money teams are offering up for Soto’s services,” Reuter added.

If the Red Sox really do offer that kind of contract to Soto, it seems likely they will win the bidding. And that should deliver the kind of full throttle offseason that fans are hoping for.

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