The Dodgers, despite already carrying a massive payroll that includes megadeals for Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, have interest in signing pending free agent Juan Soto, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post.
Per Heyman, the structure of Ohtani’s deal — which contains massive deferrals — could give Los Angeles the flexibility to land Soto if he has interest in going there.
The Dodgers’ year-end payroll this season for luxury tax purposes was a shade under $352 million dollars.
To drill down on that a bit, they have $157.5 million committed to five players (Ohtani, Betts, Yamamoto, Freddie Freeman, and Tyler Glasnow) for 2025 as far as luxury tax purposes are calculated.
Add Soto to the above, and the Dodgers would likely have north of $200 million committed to six players for 2025.
And most of those deals are not ending any time soon.
Looking ahead, the Dodgers already have $163.79 million owed to five players for 2028.
Perhaps Los Angeles doesn’t care about potentially being above the highest tax threshold for more than a half decade in a row. But even if that’s the case, they might have trouble luring Soto to California.
Heyman reports that the Yankees view the Mets and perhaps the Blue Jays as the “real threat” to pry Soto away from the Bronx, with those Yankees people skeptical Soto wants to go back to California.
When it comes to the Mets, they are especially well-positioned to make a run at Soto.
Specifically, the Mets — whose 2024 payroll was pockmarked by money owed to players who were no longer playing for them — will enter the offseason with around only $150 million committed for 2025.
Gone are the contracts of Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Omar Narvaez, and James McCann. The Mets can also look to the end of the 2025 season, when the $20.75 million that has been owed to Starling Marte annually will come off the books.
“We’ve got financial flexibility,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said at Citi Field last Wednesday during his end-of-season news conference. “It means that pretty much the entirety of the player universe is potentially accessible to us. That’s an enormous opportunity. I envision us taking advantage of that opportunity, and being aggressive in certain spaces.
“We also have to recognize that we want to set up our organizational pattern so that we can invest in free agency, invest where we think we need to to complement the club on an annual basis. So, you’re right. We have a lot of money coming off the books. I would expect us to spend some of that — a good portion of that — to complement our team, to improve our team heading into next year. We’re also not gonna do anything that hamstrings us in future years and prevents us from continually adding, supplementing to our core group.”
