After weeks of rumors and speculation, the Juan Soto sweepstakes finally came to an end Sunday night with the superstar slugger electing to sign a record-breaking 15-year, $765 million contract with the New York Mets.
The Boston Red Sox were one of five finalists for Soto. According to WEEI’s Rob Bradford, their final offer was a 15-year deal that would have paid in the neighborhood of $700 million.
The Greg Hill Show reacted to Soto’s decision Monday morning, and the crew wondered just how serious the Red Sox really were if they weren’t willing to outbid Mets owner Steve Cohen.
“I was lured in,” Greg Hill said. “I was honey-trapped by the Boston Red Sox. The amount of money Juan Soto is walking away with, 765 million dollars, closer to a billion dollars than any athlete has ever gotten before, you look at it and go, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of money.’ It’s 15 years. That’s a lot of years.
“I don’t give a flying eff. If you are John Henry and you are the Boston Red Sox and you have been telling me for the last month that you’re all-in on Juan Soto, how do you get to the point where you’re on the phone with him – if you believe the reporting – half an hour before he makes the decision … I know, I’m a sucker.”
“They knew it all along. … It was an elaborate ruse,” Chris Curtis said.
“Then I have fallen victim to it, and I need to seek legal representation,” Greg continued. “Because you knew all along that Steve Cohen was going to be willing – he said as much: ‘I’m going to go 50 million over what anybody else goes.’ So, if you’re not going to be willing to stand up there and say, ‘OK, we’ll go 75 million over what Steve Cohen and the Mets will go,’ why are you bothering to try to lure everybody in, to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes?”
“Because you’re hoping that Big Papi and the other stuff maybe would [make up the difference],” Jermaine Wiggins said. “I know it’s 65 million over what we’re offering, call it 700 million, and Juan goes, ‘All right, I’ll go to Boston because of those other things.’”
Curtis countered that such an approach – thinking Soto might come to Boston for less than what the Mets were offering – was never going to work.
“What happened the last time the Red Sox were desperate to win? They were Steve Cohen, and they gave David Price 40 million more than the second-place suitor that offseason,” Curtis said. “That is how you have to conduct business, because Soto is in New York, he likes it, he just played well performing for the Yankees. You needed to incentivize him to leave, not think he would take a discount to arrive. And they knew that the whole time.”
Wiggy said if the Red Sox actually were serious about being willing to commit $700 million to Soto, they now need to spend that money, or at least a good chunk of it, elsewhere.
“Here’s what I will say: If you weren’t willing to go above Steve Cohen … and you were hoping that it would be more about the love for Big Papi and Pedro and the Dominican love, now you have to take that $700 million that you were willing to give Juan Soto and still be big players in free agency,” Wiggy said.
“I’m disappointed in myself for believing,” a dejected Greg said, summarizing his post-Soto feelings.