Last week, the baseball world was gifted with a brief break from conversations about the lockout when the news broke that Juan Soto turned down a 13-year, $350 million contract offer from the Washington Nationals last fall.
It really shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that Soto turned down that offer. Accounting for inflation, it’s worth less money than the 13-year, $330 million contract Bryce Harper signed in 2019, and Soto is three years younger than Harper was when he signed that deal.
The more interesting piece of news in the Juan Soto story, therefore, is not that he turned down that particular deal, but that he had this to say about it: “right now, my agents and I think the best option is to go year by year and wait for free agency.