Yankees favourite to re-sign Soto, Mets and Giants in conversation

The beautiful thing about sports is that there is always reason for optimism.

Only one team gets to win the World Series, so for 29 other fan bases, your ability to do mental gymnastics is usually a key to viewing your team in a positive light.

Fortunately for New York Yankees fans, I have found your solution. It's bad enough that your team just lost the World Series, but the Dallas Cowboys are a disaster, too. You just hate to see it.

But hey, look on the bright side. Juan Soto is a free agent, and now every rich owner in the league is going to sell him a dream and offer him (probably) over half a billion dollars.

Wait, that’s not the good part.

The good news is that, according to FanDuel, the Yankees are the favourites to have him sign on the dotted line.

Let’s talk more about Soto and the front runners to sign him, according to FanDuel.

HOW MUCH WILL SOTO SIGN FOR

The 26-year-old is expected to sign a lucrative deal this winter, something FanDuel Canada has a market for and TSN Baseball Insider Steve Phillips and I examined last week.

Here is an updated look at those odds.

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WHAT TEAM WILL JUAN SOTO SIGN WITH?

Unique New York, Unique New York

New York Yankees

The Yankees are the heavy favourites at -290 to sign Soto for the 2025 MLB Season.

New York acquired Soto from the San Diego Padres in a seven-player trade in December 2023. In his lone season with the team, he posted a career-high of 128 runs and hit .288, with 41 home runs and 129 walks.

Soto and teammate Aaron Judge were the only two players in baseball to walk over 120 times this season, with only Kyle Schwarber logging more than 100 and nobody else recording more than 85.

The only other team with odds shorter than 10-to-1 are the New York Mets at +250.

According to Sportrac.com, the Mets had the highest payroll in baseball in 2024, with a total of $317 million.

Since owner Steve Cohen took controlling interest in the team in October 2021, the Mets have ranked third or higher in team salary payroll every season.

They are currently 10th in payroll for 2025, with over $55 million coming off the books between Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.

THE CHASE PACK

Washington Nationals

The San Francisco Giants (+1000), Los Angeles Dodgers and Washington Nationals (+1300) round out the top five in this market.

With Buster Posey now the president of baseball operations for the Giants, a move to sign Soto could be exactly what the franchise needs to get back to becoming a perennial contender again, as they have won just one playoff series since capturing three World Series titles from 2010 - 2014.

The Dodgers adding Soto would simply be unfair. However, despite inking Shohei Ohtani to a $700 million deal last winter, the heavily backloaded nature of the deal saw them rank fifth in payroll this season, with a total payroll $30 million less than when they led the league in 2022.

Finally, after being unable to lock Soto down long-term and trading him to the Padres at the 2022 deadline, a return to Washington could make sense for Soto. The question around the Nationals remains about money as they have had a bottom 12 payroll in the league for three straight seasons.

SO YOU’RE TELLING ME THERE’S A CHANCE

I’m a Toronto Blue Jays fan. You’ll never see me deny my bias.

The Jays are the sixth and final team listed on this market with odds shorter than 30-to-1.

Coming in at +1700 the Jays could try to make good on missing out on Ohtani last year by getting Soto. Any contract Soto would sign with the Blue Jays would shatter the record for largest deal in franchise history.

George Springer currently holds that title at six years, $150 million.

Signing Soto would be the best moment of my life as a sports fan, but I won’t be betting the Jays in this market, and I’ll be pleasantly surprised if they are even a final team in contention.