Hot Stove League Update: Dodgers and Yankees Reach Their Limits; Steve Cohen Has None

 Steve Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets and a man with very deep pockets, put all that money to use by agreeing to sign Juan Soto OF to a record-breaking contract for 15 yrs/$765 M with escalators to an ultimate potential value of over $800 M.  This tops the absolute dollar amount of Shohei Ohtani's contract by $65 M in guaranteed money but most of Ohtani's contract is deferred which in MLB accounting makes it worth only about $470 M. Since none of Soto's money is deferred, he now has the richest contract in baseball history and by $ several hundred million.  The contract does have an opt-out after 2029 season. Does anybody care?  

As I have said before, I don't think there is any point in clucking about whether Soto or any ballplayer is worth this much money or whether his contract will place limits on future team spending.  It's obvious at least some MLB owners have, for all practical purposes, unlimited amounts of money to spend and they are going to spend it.  

The other side of that coin though is the Dodgers apparently do have a limit after all.  Though they already spent a lot of money this offseason and may well spend more, another team ended up with Juan Freaking Soto and the Dodgers so far have two injury prone Giants castoffs.  Which brings us to Michael Conforto.  Their is something satisfyingly symbolic that immediately after the Soto deal went down, we learned the Dodgers will sign Michael Conforto to a 1 yr/$17 M contract, which is not $51 M/yr but it's not nothing either.  I'll have to get back to you about why the Dodgers would want Michael Conforto, a player who was incredibly disappointing in his two years with the Giants.

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The more I think about the Giants signing Willy Adames, the more I am impressed by how Buster Posey got that deal done.  Don't forget that not only does Buster have personal knowledge of how players think about free agency, he also hired his own agent as an advisor to add an even stronger player/agent perspective to the process.  The comparison to FZ's completely tone-deaf and apparently off-putting approach is so striking.

No matter how good a player is or what their market value is, players are human and human's need to feel wanted when they form relationships.  Nobody wants to be someone else's second choice.  This is all speculation, of course, but it looks like Buster's approach worked on two levels:  1.  He let Adames know Adames was his first choice from Day 1 of free agency and Juan Soto was not a factor in Buster's priorities.  2.  Buster knew that as soon as the Soto shoe dropped, several other teams would immediately pivot to Adames, including the Dodgers who were also an obvious fit, possibly driving his price out of the Giants comfort zone.  Buster did not want to climb down the same ladder FZ did so many times.  In making Adames feel wanted Buster was able to get ahead of the market and get the deal he had to make done.  Very impressive work there but the Giants new President of Baseball Operations!