Article: What It Means That the Red Sox Tried To Land Juan Soto

[Daniel Fox]

Although they came up short, it's encouraging that the Red Sox went all-out for a marquee player. How they'll handle things going forward.

Welp.

In the end, the outcome we had all feared and the one that made the most sense was the one that came to fruition. Juan Soto is going to be a New York Met for the rest of his major league career. He will win MVPs, reach the 500 home run club, and enter Cooperstown wearing the orange and blue. In all likelihood, he will go down as the greatest player in the history of the 50-year-old franchise.

There are no participation trophies in free agency, and the Red Sox don’t get credit for coming in third place. Their pursuit of Soto will go down as a footnote in baseball history, but it is one that we should not gloss over. After years of sitting on the sideline, the Red Sox went after the generational slugger with the kind of intensity we haven’t seen from them in years. They met with Soto in Los Angeles, sent David Ortiz and Rafael Devers as recruiters, and offered him the largest contract in big-league history.

In the end, however, they were always swimming upstream. They had to compete with the incumbent Yankees, who were desperate to re-sign him after they sent a hefty package to the Padres for one year of his services, as well as Steve Cohen’s Mets, who had the ability to outbid anybody in baseball and were desperate for a middle-of-the-order bat. The Red Sox gave it their best shot, but it was always a long shot.

One thing that is certain is that there is no point in dwelling on this loss. The Winter Meetings are finally underway, and the Red Sox have a lot of work to do. The strange thing about the pursuit of Soto is that he didn’t fit any of the team’s needs. Throughout September and October, the general consensus was that the Red Sox needed a right-handed bat, at least one top-end starting pitcher, and a late-inning reliever. Though you can argue that Aroldis Chapman may fit the last category, I would argue that the Red Sox have yet to check any of the necessary boxes.

The path forward is quite clear. For starters, the Red Sox need to sign either Corbin Burnes or Max Fried. Each has a proven track record of sustained, consistent success and would anchor the team’s rotation for at least the next half a decade. On the offensive side, the Red Sox should be in the mix for a Teoscar Hernández. The former Dodger is coming off a 33-homer season, and his infatuation with Alex Cora and Fenway Park is well-documented. The Red Sox are also reportedly in the mix for former Orioles slugger Anthony Santander as well as longtime Astros stalwart Alex Bregman.

Ironically, the team the Red Sox appear to be competing with the most for these players is the other team that lost out on Juan Soto. The Yankees reportedly had meetings with both Corbin Burnes and Max Fried and they need a big bat to replace Soto and protect Aaron Judge. The deciding factor on who ends up with these players may be who can most effectively pivot their attention from Soto to the other big names on the market.

Now, recent history may indicate that the Yankees have the upper hand in this competition, given that they have closed the deal with Gerrit Cole, Judge, and Carlos Rodón, but I firmly believe the tides are changing. For one, the Red Sox’s aggressive pursuit of Soto showed they are in a different stage of team building, one where they are focused on contending for championships in 2025 rather than 2026 or 2027. This indicates that they will be far more willing to sign players in their late 20s and early 30s than they were in the previous few years.

The team's ability to match the Yankees dollar-for-dollar is critical because it have a clear advantage when it comes to secondary factors. With Soto in Queens, the Yankees look a lot like the 2023 club that won just 82 games, and their future is clouded by a weak farm system and a core built around aging stars. The Red Sox, meanwhile, are objectively a team on the rise, with a present that at least matches the Yankees' and a future that exceeds it. For a player thinking about committing six or seven years to an organization, a clear pathway to perennial contention could make all the difference.

Look, missing out on Soto is disappointing. I am not going to try to convince you otherwise. A generational hitter, one who has been frequently dubbed the next Ted Williams, was within the Red Sox's grasp, and they failed to close the deal. But the offseason is not over. Plenty of big names remain, and the Red Sox will have ample opportunity to fit every one of their needs. The stakes are high, the window of opportunity is tight, but I have faith that Craig Breslow and Co. will find a way to significantly upgrade the big-league roster. 

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