Sometime in the next month or two, Juan Soto will sign a piece of paper and become an obscenely rich man. However, it is unclear whether the new wealth will be a record.

Shohei Ohtani currently holds the title of the largest contract in sports history with the 10-year, $700 million contract he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers a year ago. That deal not only broke Mike Trout’s record for baseball money, it surpassed it by nine figures. An entire Nolan Arenado contract can fit in the gap between the money in Ohtani’s deal and Trout’s $426 million.

Soto was long earmarked to land the next mega deal when the star player hit free agency this offseason, but Ohtani’s deal is now beyond negotiations. Will Soto be able to come close to the deal that made the baseball world gasp, or will Ohtani’s deal remain an outlier?

Here’s what you should know about what Soto has going for him and why his case is different than Ohtani’s. Both players are elite hitters, and that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

Will: Age is just a number, but it’s a very important number here

It might be a bit of a surprise considering Soto and Ohtani both made their MLB debuts in 2018, but the 26-year-old Soto is more than three years younger than Ohtani was at the time of his own free agency. Ohtani found stardom in Japan and then came over to the MLB at age 23, while Soto shot up through the Washington Nationals’ minor league system as a teenager.

The three-year gap is significant, because that’s three more years of prime that a Soto bidder will get if they land him.

Let’s do an exercise. We won’t pretend that Soto can match Ohtani’s average annual value of $70 million (and we’ll get into why that number is misleading later). Instead, let’s look at the second-highest average annual value a player has received: Aaron Judge’s $40 million ($360 million over nine years). It’s been a couple of years since Judge signed that deal, so let’s add $5 million and say Soto can get $45 million a year. It’s an expansive hand wave, but we’re in a hurry here.

Now let’s consider that Judge is signed through his age-39 season. We could also look at Soto’s similarity score on Baseball reference and see his most similar batter through his age-25 season, who has already played an entire career, is Hall of Famer Frank Robinson. By OPS+, Robinson remained an above-average hitter until he retired at age 40.

We’ll do some math behind the napkin for a very complicated process, but paying Soto $45 million until his age-40 season gets you a 15-year, $675 million contract. Throw in another year, and he’s passed Ohtani.

That would be the longest contract in MLB history, surpassing Fernando Tati Jr.’s 14-year, $340 million deal, but that’s what becomes more possible when you hit free agency at Soto’s age.

Won’t: Try to imagine selling Scott Boras with deferment

The problem with comparisons to Ohtani’s contract is that the $700 million figure is something of a lie.

Yes, when Ohtani’s paychecks from this contract are totaled, they will total $700 million. But, as most fans know, Ohtani doesn’t get the $700 million the normal way. He is deferring $680 million of that money until the contract is up.

Due to inflation, that means Ohtani won’t get $700 million in value as we currently understand it. MLB is treating the deal as a 10-year, $460 million contract, which sounds positive when compared to Trout’s previous record.

But here’s the thing: Ohtani wanted those reprieve. He took it to the table with the Dodgerswho eagerly accepted, because every company in the world would be happy to delay the wages of its highest-earning employee by a decade if allowed.

Now let’s remember that Soto retains the services of Scott Boras, the guy you hire when you want the number on your contract to be as big as possible. Odds are Soto and Boras aren’t interested in replicating Ohtani’s generosity, and that means teams won’t get the bargain Ohtani gave the Dodgers.

Will: A bidding war between New York teams is a good place to be

Forget who did and didn’t make the World Series, the biggest winner in the trade that sent Soto from the San Diego Padres to the New York Yankees may have been Soto.

By joining the Yankees a year before his free agency, he became something the Yankees could lose. Much was made of how the Yankees had a year to sell Soto on what he could accomplish in the Bronx, but the opposite is also true. Soto helped take the Yankees to the World Series in his first year in pinstripes, and now the team faces the prospect of having to get there again without him.

Fans wouldn’t like that, especially considering who else is competing. The three other teams that have meetings with Soto this week are two of the Yankees’ division rivals, the Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays, and their cross-town rival, the New York Mets.

The Mets are the most intriguing option there because a) they have Steve Cohen, the richest owner in baseball and b) Cohen has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t care if his team is profitable if it wins.

The baseball world knew for years that if the Yankees really wanted a free agent, they got that free agent. The Mets have a chance to loudly declare that is no longer true. The best possible outcome for Soto’s bank account is that emotions come into play as Cohen and the Steinbrenner family bid, and that seems to be where the situation is trending.

Won’t: Ohtani didn’t get paid just for being good at baseball

By signing Juan Soto, you get a great baseball player. By signing Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers gained an international icon, as well as a great baseball player.

Maybe there’s a more sensitive way to say this, but Ohtani’s fame is different than Soto’s. Soto may be the second coming of Ted Williams, but Ohtani is the national hero of the third richest country in the world. Every single business in Japan would love to be associated with Ohtani, and so is the Dodgers’ business side reportedly didn’t bat an eye when told of a potential $700 million cost.

Through sponsorships and advertising, the Dodgers have already made tens of millions of dollars by hiring Ohtani (or even $120 million, if AJ Pierzynski is to be believed). That’s money Ohtani takes in before he swings a bat, to say nothing of the financial boost the Dodgers received from winning the World Series.

Soto does not come with the built-in revenue stream. He’ll certainly help your team win and attract fans, but it’s hard to overstate the gulf in international fame that exists between Ohtani and the rest of the world’s baseball players.

Will: Soto is one of the most consistently healthy players in baseball

The easiest way for a contract to go south is for that player to become injury prone. It’s more common with pitchers, but we’ve also seen it with the likes of Ken Griffey Jr. and Mark Teixeira.

If Soto’s career thus far is any judge, teams probably don’t have much to worry about in that regard. Since making his first inaugural roster in 2019, Soto hasn’t missed more than 13 games in a single season. He’s also a guy who doesn’t rely on tools that can deteriorate with age. His best tool, sheet metal discipline, is known to age well.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers hope Ohtani’s second UCL surgery goes well or they lose what made him the best two-way player the game has ever seen. But on the other hand…

Won’t: Ohtani does more things well than Soto

If you’re going to bet on a guy to be good in his late 30s, it stands to reason that you want to bet on the guy who does more things well than any other player in baseball. That guy is Ohtani.

Although Ohtani is no longer the pitcher he once was, the Dodgers according to information wanted him more for his bat anyway. He then went on to become one of the best baserunners in baseball, posting the first 50-50 season in MLB history.

And let’s not forget that Ohtani sometimes played in the outfield in Japan. With his speed and arm strength, it’s quite conceivable that he could become a good outfielder again if pitching is no longer an option. He wouldn’t be the first Dodger superstar to make a position change for the good of the team.

We don’t know what Ohtani’s game will look like when he’s 39, but it will probably still be valuable. Meanwhile, Soto’s value is entirely focused on his bat. He’s not a good baserunner and he’s not a good fielder.

The contract number Soto ends up at will be significant for the rest of MLB. It’s hard not to view Ohtani’s contract as the cap on all possible trades for the foreseeable future, much like Alex Rodriguez once did with his then-world-shattering $252 million pact with the Texas Rangers in 2001, but Soto can push back against that narrative this. winter.

At the very least, he seems poised to top Ohtani when it comes to actual contract value, but that could depend on Ohtani’s picks as much as Soto’s value.