Mets $765 million Juan Soto vision is about to get underway

PORT ST.LUCIE — Plenty of talented players have arrived to the Mets over the decades, Hall of Famers among them, but almost none, if any, wearing the “generational” label that was affixed to Juan Soto this offseason.It was a buzzword that Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns used upon interviewing for the position with team owner Steve Cohen in the summer of 2023.At that point, Soto was still playing for the Padres and more than a year away from free agency, but he fit into Cohen and Stearns’ vision for the Mets.“We talked about some of the generational players in our game, and the difficulty of accessing some of those generational players, and certainly Juan is one of them,” Stearns said in December.

“You never know where this was going to go, and we didn’t know if he was going to get an extension of some sort, but we did know that if he was going to be a free agent, we were going to make a very strong push.”Ultimately that push involved a record $765 million guaranteed over the next 15 years.It’s a deal that could total as much as $805 million if the Mets pay Soto to prevent him from opting out after the fifth season of the contract.The prize is a 26-year-old outfielder who fits neatly into the conversation — with players such as Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge — about the game’s greatest talents.And within the next week, it will be time for the Mets’ new star to finish his victory lap from the winter and begin his spring.

The team’s first workout for pitchers and catchers is Wednesday.The first full-squad workout is Monday.The Mets will be more than just the Juan Soto show, but you start with the All-Star outfielder and quickly move to Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso and Mark Vientos in the lineup as the biggest reasons for optimism that the team can build off last year’s surprising surge to the NLCS.

The other key returning hitters include Brandon Nimmo, Francisco Alvarez and Jeff McNeil. Soto, batting in the same l...