There are echoes of Bryce Harper's free agency in the Soto sweepstakes, right down to the young age at which they reached the market. Soto wants an owner committed to winning, the agent says.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- When Scott Boras gets on his soapbox -- yes, he actually stands on a wooden crate -- the most prominent agent in baseball draws a few dozen reporters.
But he's really speaking to a different audience: 30 team owners.
Unlike most agents, who whisper in the shadows and off the record, Boras makes a semiannual display of hyping his free-agent clients. Armed with talking points and puns that are equal parts clever and corny -- "The Snelling salts have created a lot of whiffs, and the market has awakened to Blake Snell," he said Wednesday -- Boras is always on spin cycle.
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It's good publicity for his players. It's also an appeal to the owners, who control the money and are usually more emotional than the executives they hire to build a roster. Because all it takes to goose a player's market is one owner who gets a little loose with the purse strings.
Juan Soto's market might not need any spurring. Soto is a four-time All-Star, a World Series champ, and a hitting savant, with Ted Williams' plate discipline and Mike Trout's power. He also just turned 26. So, if Boras is seeking to take the bidding above Shohei Ohtani's $46 million average annual salary, there's a good chance he will be successful.
Still, in outlining what's important to Soto in free agency -- other than, undoubtedly, truckloads of money -- Boras cited an owner who will be fully invested in winning championships over the next decade.
"Juan Soto wants ownership that he knows is going to support an opportunity to win annually," Boras said during a break in the general managers' meetings in San Antonio. "It's remarkable to think of a player from a very modest beginning, from the Dominican Republic, that all the monetary offerings that he's received, that his focus was always, 'I want to know who my owner is. I want to know that we're gonna be able to win. I'm going to commit my career to it, and I want the owner to commit his resources to it.'"
If Boras' spiel sounds familiar, it might be because he said many of the same things six years ago about Bryce Harper.
There are echoes of Harper's free agency in the Soto sweepstakes, right down to the uncommonly young age at which they reached the market. (Harper was also entering his age-26 season.) Harper met with team owners and had specific questions about their long-term goals. Soto intends to do the same, according to Boras.
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Harper hit it off with John Middleton, who made two trips to Las Vegas, including one with his wife and without team officials. Even now, Harper cites his comfort with Middleton as a major factor in deciding to accept the Phillies' 13-year, $330 million offer, a record at the time for North American pro sports.
Maybe Soto will find a similar fit with Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner. Or Mets owner Steve Cohen. Or Giants chairman Greg Johnson.
Or maybe with Middleton?
Boras will surely try. The Phillies have been among the most aggressive teams in free agency since 2019. In addition to Harper, they doled out nine-figure contracts to Zack Wheeler (twice), J.T. Realmuto, Nick Castellanos, Trea Turner, and Aaron Nola. They cleared the luxury-tax threshold in 2022 and haven't looked back. This season, they had the sixth-highest payroll, projected at $261 million for tax purposes.
And Middleton told The Inquirer last week that he expects the payroll to rise again in 2025 and would consider going over the third tax threshold ($281 million) "for the right player."
Juan Soto, anyone?
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Dave Dombrowski won't discuss Soto, citing league rules that prohibit club executives from talking publicly about free agents. But the Phillies president of baseball operations seemed to douse the whole thing with cold water Wednesday by reiterating his stance from last month on whether he will chase another star this winter.
"Put it this way: Our ownership allows us to do a lot of things, but sometimes that's not what you need," Dombrowski said. "We have a lot of good star players on our team. You can read that as you wish."
OK, fair enough. But the Phillies are looking to add another bat to the lineup, and Dombrowski said the outfield is the "obvious" position to upgrade. The drop-off from Soto to, well, just about any player in the free-agent and trade markets is steeper than a roller coaster.
It's the Offseason of Soto, who, in Boras' distinctive words, is "the Mona Lisa of the museum." And Boras knows from Harper's free agency about Middleton's commitment to "getting my [darned] trophy back," as the Phillies' owner often says.
The Phillies will almost certainly request and receive a meeting with Soto, as they did last year with prized free-agent pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto. They will try to leverage Soto's close relationship with hitting coach Kevin Long, who worked with him in Washington early in his career.
In all likelihood, the money won't work. Signing Soto would push the payroll over $300 million. But Boras will surely appeal to Middleton's burning desire to win.
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And appealing to owners might be Boras' best agenting skill.
"For a generational talent -- or a centurion, as I call [Soto] -- what's unusual about free agency is usually it's an economic barrier for a lot of teams to sign players of that ilk, but in their models and how they view players, he fits them because it's a great business investment," Boras said. "Apart from budgets and how they look at things, you can see that getting an opportunity to acquire a player at this age, with this skill, with this character, with this experience, with so much performance gradient established, they understand the surplus value of it.
"For most owners to own a team for 15 to 20 years, for them to have an opportunity to acquire a player like this, I think they look at it. I go through history and say: How many times has baseball offered this opportunity? And I think they all, smartly, recognize it."