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Juan Soto is headed to the Bronx for his final year before free agency. The Yankees and Padres injected some much-needed buzz into the Winter Meetings by agreeing on a five-for-two deal to place Soto next to Aaron Judge in New York’s outfield.

Will it be for more than one year? What might Soto make on the open market?

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Soto should make around $33 million this year — that arbitration estimate is courtesy of MLB Trade Rumors — which will push his career earnings before free agency past $80 million. He’s slated to hit free agency after the season, entering his age-26 season, meaning a 14- or 15-year contract isn’t out of the realm of possibility. (As teams have looked to limit a player’s cost against the luxury tax by making deals longer, we’ve seen more players sign up to and into their 40s, including Trea Turner, Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts last winter.)

The challenge with Soto is the general lack of comparable players hitting free agency at the same age as him. The frenzy around Yoshinobu Yamamoto has reiterated how teams value those extra prime years in a player’s late 20s. For Soto, it basically goes back five years to the deals signed by Machado and Bryce Harper.

In general, Soto compares favorably to both those players at the same age. He doesn’t own an MVP award the way Harper did, but he’s been a more consistent lineup presence than even Harper was earlier in his career.

Machado’s deal would be worth $357 million today, Harper’s $393 million. To get a better sense of a real long-term deal for Soto, we could mash together Machado’s initial deal with San Diego with the contract extension he worked out last winter. The first four years of Machado’s deal equate to $144 million in today’s money, which we can add to the 11-year, $350 million extension he signed to land at 15 years and $494 million.

This might be the floor for that long a deal for Soto.

Now where’s the ceiling?

Whatever Shohei Ohtani signs for this winter will help establish just how high Soto could go. In lieu of that, one creative comparison for Soto is to Alex Rodriguez.

Soto doesn’t fare as well here as he did in the earlier table. He’s older than Rodriguez, doesn’t play a premium position and hasn’t been as consistently dominant as Rodriguez was at that time. But bear with me here.

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Rodriguez signed his initial 10-year deal with Texas that would today be worth about $43 million per season. He opted out seven years into that deal and re-signed with the Yankees for another 10 years that would be worth just shy of $400 million in today’s money. If we combined those deals into one monster contract that also took Soto through his age-41 season, you’d get a 16-year deal worth just about $650 million.

Again, Soto is a lot closer to Machado as a player than he is to Rodriguez, and it’s awfully difficult to use contracts more than a decade old as comps. So that’s probably an unrealistic ceiling.

OK, one last method here, using Soto’s new teammate. Judge signed last winter for nine years and $360 million, covering his age-31 through age-39 season. Soto hasn’t been as productive leading into his free agency as Judge has, accumulating about 80 percent of his value.

But, Soto’s next deal will capture five additional prime seasons. Soto’s averaged 5.5 wins above replacement over the last three seasons, and he landed at that mark in 2023. If a single win above replacement is valued at about $9 million on the open market, that makes Soto’s prime years worth $50 million apiece.

So let’s value the first five years of a Soto contract at $50 million each and his age-31 through age-39 seasons at 80 percent of Judge, or $32 million. Add those two pieces together and you get a 14-year deal worth right around $540 million in free agency. If the Yankees want to get the jump on an extension, add in Soto’s projected $33 million salary for 2024 and push it closer to 15 years and $575 million.

(Photo of Juan Soto: Orlando Ramirez/USA Today)

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