Soto: Yankees ‘did everything in their power’
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Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer
NEW YORK — Juan Soto‘s decision to sign with the New York Mets not only bolstered the organization’s chances to win World Series titles for years to come. It also doubled as a blow to their crosstown rivals after Soto thrived in his only season with the New York Yankees.
On Thursday, after his introductory news conference at Citi Field, Soto said the Yankees “did everything in their power” to sign him, but he ultimately thought the Mets were a better fit.
“I don’t think it was the Mets over the Yankees,” Soto said. “I think it was five teams that [were] right there on the table. I don’t think it had anything to do with the Mets over the Yankees. I think we had all five teams pushing until the last moment, until the last time of making the decision. And we went over to the Mets.”
Soto shined in the Bronx, clubbing a career-high 41 home runs, finishing third in American League MVP voting and helping the Yankees reach their first World Series since 2009 in his age-25 season. Their final offer — 16 years for $760 million with no deferrals, according to sources — was competitive with the 15-year, $765 million deal he chose to sign with the Mets.
It also would have been the largest contract in professional sports history. But it wasn’t enough.
“I had other four teams doing the same thing and trying to make me comfortable,” said Soto, who didn’t talk to any of his former Yankees teammates during his time as a free agent. “And at the end of the day, we looked at everything. We looked at the chances, and we looked at what the other teams wanted to do and what everyone wants to do for the next 15 years. And I think we have the best chance over here.”
Mets owner Steve Cohen said Soto made a request for a family suite in his contract from the beginning of negotiations and he did not hesitate to include it, a step the Yankees were not willing to take based on precedence with other star players. The deal includes a $75 million signing bonus and an opt-out after the fifth year that the Mets can avoid by adding $4 million to Soto’s annual salary over the final 10 years of the contract, raising the potential total value to $805 million.
“When you get to those numbers, you’re in a stratosphere,” Cohen said. “And so you got to make a judgement call that this is really going to matter to the Mets and be something that’s going to drive our goal to win championships. To get a player of his caliber is really unusual. So you got to step a little bit further than you would expect.”
Soto emphasized the Mets’ vision for the future, the financial commitment Cohen insisted he would make and the way the organization treated players and their families as the drivers for his decision. He mentioned building a “dynasty” multiple times.
“The Mets are a great organization and what they have done in the past couple of years, showing all the ability to keep winning … to try to grow a dynasty is one of the most important things,” Soto said. “What you were seeing from the other side was unbelievable. The vibes and everything. The feel and the future that this team has, it has a lot to do with my decision.”
Cohen said he found Soto to be a very detail-oriented person, peppering Mets officials with questions. At one point during Soto’s second recruitment lunch with the club, held Friday in Florida, Cohen said the superstar right fielder asked him how many World Series titles he envisioned winning over the next 10 years.
Cohen told Soto he’d like to win two to four.
“I think this accelerates our goal of winning championships,” Cohen said Thursday.
Accelerating the goal with Soto onboard was on Cohen’s mind long before this offseason. President of baseball operations David Stearns said Cohen told him the Mets would make a strong push for Soto if he reached free agency this winter during discussions before Stearns was hired to lead the front office in October 2023.
“We talked about some of the generational players in our game and the difficulty of accessing some of those generational players and certainly Juan is one of them,” Stearns said.
Stearns said the preparation to pursue Soto began in earnest in August. Scott Boras, Soto’s agent, indicated that eight teams showed sincere interest in bidding for his services, but Soto chose to narrow the field to five: The Mets, Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers.
Soto held meetings with four of the clubs at a hotel in Newport Beach, California, in November. The Mets were the only team not to meet Soto there. Instead, the Mets held their gathering at Cohen’s $32 million mansion in Beverly Hills.
There, the Mets presented Soto a video, in English, created by Cohen’s son, Josh, inside the home’s movie theater. His wife, Alex, impressed Soto’s camp with her focus on family with her 93-year-old father, Ralph, known at Citi Field as “Mets Grandpa,” flying cross-country to be in attendance.
“My father-in-law is at every game, every home game,” Steve Cohen said. “I wanted [Soto] to see how important baseball is to this family. You know, Alex grew up with one TV in her apartment and that Met game was on every night.”
Over 30 members of Soto’s family were in attendance for Thursday’s news conference. The Mets served lunch with Dominican food items.
“It looks good on you!” a member of his family yelled out in Spanish when Soto put on his new No. 22 jersey standing between Stearns and Boras.
In the end, Soto wore that number only one season across town. The Yankees ultimately fell short of the ultimate goal. In Queens, the Mets made an unexpected run to the National League Championship Series a year earlier than expected on strong vibes and a solid foundation. Now it’s about winning championships.
“It’s been a Mets town for a long time,” Soto said. “I think we just got to bring it to the top. Championships are going to tell you if it’s a Yankees or a Mets town at the end of the day.”
Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava officially announced his transfer to UCLA via a social media post Sunday.
“My journey at UT has come to an end,” he wrote on Instagram. “This decision was incredibly difficult, and truthfully, not something I expected to make this soon. But I trust God’s timing, and I believe He’s leading me where I need to be.
“Even though this chapter is ending, a new chapter has begun and I am committed to UCLA!”
Iamaleava was a highly regarded recruit who led Tennessee to the College Football Playoff last season. He was No. 1 in ESPN’s transfer portal rankings and immediately gives UCLA one of the best-known players in the sport upon his arrival. The Bruins are coming off a 5-7 debut season by coach DeShaun Foster.
Iamaleava, a five-star prospect from Long Beach, California, was recruited by UCLA out of high school. His younger brother, Madden Iamaleava, committed to UCLA out of high school but changed his commitment on the morning of signing day and signed with Arkansas.
Those recruitments gave both sides plenty of familiarity and the ability to potentially move quickly.
Iamaleava passed for 2,616 yards, 19 touchdowns and 5 interceptions in his first season as a starter, but in nine games against SEC opponents and Ohio State in the playoff, he threw for more than 200 yards only twice.
Tennessee’s offense finished No. 9 in the conference in scoring with 25.0 points per game in SEC play. The Volunteers’ offense was No. 1 in rushing and No. 11 in passing in league play.
UCLA is coming off a season in which it finished No. 14 in scoring offense and No. 12 in total offense in Big Ten play.
Iamaleava was earning $2.4 million at Tennessee under the contract he signed with Spyre Sports Group, the Tennessee-based collective, when he was still in high school. The deal would have paid him in the $10 million range altogether had he stayed four years at Tennessee.
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel announced last week after the Volunteers’ spring game that the program was moving forward without Iamaleava after he missed practice and meetings April 11. He hadn’t alerted anyone on the team and was unresponsive afterward.
Heupel thanked Iamaleava and called the situation unfortunate, but added, “There’s no one bigger than the Power T, and that includes me.”
Iamaleava, a rising redshirt sophomore, officially entered the transfer portal Wednesday with a do-not-contact tag.
ESPN’s Pete Thamel contributed to this report.
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Kristen Shilton
The New Jersey Devils‘ injury woes may have reached alarming new heights.
Defenseman Brenden Dillon and forward Cody Glass exited during the second and third periods, respectively, in Game 1 of the first-round Stanley Cup playoff series against the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday, a 4-1 loss for New Jersey. The Devils were also briefly without defenseman Luke Hughes, who left in the third period but was able to return.
New Jersey entered the postseason already undermanned. Top forward Jack Hughes, Luke’s brother, had season-ending shoulder surgery in March, and defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler is also not expected to be available in the first round.
Coach Sheldon Keefe remained optimistic though about one of the team’s latest injured bodies.
“(Dillon) was eager to get back out there,” Keefe said by way of an update. Doctors ultimately held Dillon out for “precautionary reasons.”
The veteran blueliner was taken to the ice by Carolina forward William Carrier battling in front of the Devils’ net. He remained down for several minutes before being helped off by New Jersey’s training staff.
It was a disastrous third period sequence that shortened New Jersey’s bench further. Hughes went flying into the Devils’ net after tripping over Hurricanes’ forward Andrei Svechnikov, and ran off the ice cradling his right arm. Then, Devils’ goaltender Jacob Markstrom accidentally clipped Glass with his stick while appearing to aim for Svechnikov. Glass left and did not return while Hughes finished the game.
New Jersey will have to wait and see who is available when they take on Carolina in Game 2 on Tuesday. For now, Keefe won’t let the Devils dwell on what they can’t control.
“To a man, myself included,” he said, “we’re all going to have to be better.”
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