Mets president reveals behind-the-scenes story of landing Juan Soto for $765,000,000

The New York Mets landing Juan Soto for the largest contract in sports history with $765 million for 15 years has to be the biggest talking point of the offseason. They battled at least five other clubs who had presented their bids and edged out their crosstown rivals, the New York Yankees, by $5 million and a greater annual average value to win Soto's sweepstakes.

Their President of Baseball Operations, David Stearns, opened up about the negotiations behind-the-scenes when they were locked in, in the bidding war for the Dominican.

Stearns spoke on CNBC Television's broadcast in an exclusive interview with Alex Sherman where he took everyone through the entire process.

"We understood there were going to be a number of big-market, well-financed teams bidding on his services. And really, at the end of the day, money’s always a factor, and money was a big factor, but all the clubs were relatively close in their final bids. We had to make sure that once we got to that final stage, we gave our best effort to make Juan Soto want to be in New York Mets..."

"There’s a staging of offers, and then ultimately it’s the agent’s job to push each club to the max. We have to decide on the club side what is our max and then make a very firm, hard stop. In this case, I think Scott Boras got multiple clubs to their max, and then Juan had the opportunity to decide what was the best fit for him," Stearns said. [5:30 onwards]

David Stearns stresses on contract value as major tangibles driving a free ageny

The club President also added that Juan Soto's bidding ultimately came down to the amount of money and the years attached to it, that the team was willing to offer him. He concluded for any free agent signing, the final team with the strongest money value acquires the player's services.

“I think years and dollars generally drive all free agent pursuits. As you get to the closing stages, there are going to be other aspects of a deal, maybe softer aspects, that come into play. But in my experience, years and dollars on the contract side generally drive things,” Stearns said. [7:10 onwards]

This comes after there was major speculation that Soto chose the Mets over the other clubs because of the management's approach especially owner Steve Cohen's and his bonding that was said to be a driver of his value.

Juan Soto joins Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Mark Vientos and others in a heavily stacked Mets lineup and will gearing to go in Spring Training next month.