00:00John, the shockwaves of the Juan Soto signing with the Mets with the largest contract in
00:05sports history are still being felt across the baseball world.
00:09Now that you've had some additional time to kind of get your head wrapped around it, how
00:12would you process this and what is your perspective?
00:15Jim, a couple of things here.
00:17Number one, we are going to be talking about this decision by Juan Soto for a decade, in
00:24fact, for 15 years, which is the length of the contract.
00:28And during that time horizon, the decision that he made two days ago is reshaping New
00:34York baseball for the next decade plus.
00:38Everything that happens between the Mets and the Yankees, the identity of each team, the
00:44rivalry itself, will go back to December the 8th and the choice that Juan Soto made that
00:49he believed in the Mets' future more so than the Yankees' future, as has been said by many
00:55different analysts here in covering the winter meeting.
00:57So that is fascinating.
00:59The other thing is, Jim, it says to me that we are not far away, maybe two, three years
01:05down the road, from the first $1 billion baseball player.
01:10Think about this, Jim.
01:11We've been covering this sport long enough to know that entire franchises used to be
01:16sold for much less than a billion dollars.
01:19And we may now very soon have a single player who has a billion dollar salary.
01:25Because you look at it, and yes, Joey Otani, nominally, it was a $700 million deal.
01:29Of course, it was heavily discounted because of the deferrals.
01:32But then Soto, with no deferrals, gets beyond three quarters of a billion dollars, and he
01:39doesn't pitch.
01:40He's a great hitter, Jim, but that is his job.
01:43And so for that one skill that he has, it's a great skill, by the way, but he is being
01:48rewarded at that level.
01:49So it just tells me, Jim, that the game at its highest level is in a very healthy place.
01:55The big market teams can make moves like this while the rest of the industry is standing
01:59by in awe.
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