By Patrick Mooney, Will Sammon, Brendan Kuty and Ken Rosenthal
Juan Soto laughed when a friend asked where he was going. It was early December and that question mystified Major League Baseball’s most valuable franchises, the ones lining up to guarantee the biggest player contract in the sport’s history. The coveted free agent was still processing what he had heard from club owners and officials as they pitched their respective franchises during extensive meetings in Southern California.
“It’s so hard,” the friend recalled Soto saying. “Everyone makes it sound so good.