Wishing You Soto Mojo
By Ryan McCrary | July 20, 2022

Next time you don’t take the opportunity to believe in yourself, please remember the case of Juan Soto of the Washington Nationals.

For the uninitiated, Soto, is a 23-year old outfielder who made his second (2nd) career MLB All-Star Game appearance this week and is currently batting .250 with 20 home runs and 43 RBI. This obviously does not tell the whole story of one of the brightest stars in baseball today.

Oh, and there’s this… Soto just turned down a 15-year contract extension worth $440 million ($29.6 million per year). Read the previous sentence again. I’ll wait. There are no typos in it. The Nationals, who won the 2019 World Series, are scuffling once again this year at 31-63 at the All-Star Break and are now considering trade offers. 

I have taken to calling this brand of self-confidence “Soto Mojo”. For the longest time I referred to it as “Maverick Mojo”, for all Top Gun fans out there.

While the purpose of this article is to remind you to believe in yourself and bank on yourself, I would like to add the following caveat: Unless you are one of the top young stars in baseball, if you are offered a $440 million contract, I would strongly advise signing it. Many of you may be saying, “Yes, Ryan, but the IRS will take about half of that money”. To which I respond: Yes, you may be correct, but you would still take home… *crunches numbers… *chews on a pen cap… about $220 million. I believe Steve Miller Band wrote a song about this very scenario.

I am not a visionary financial advisor, but I find the above to be ironclad financial advice. Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.

While most of Twitter is agog at the prospect of a baseball star – regardless of future upside – turning down a contract worth more than most human beings can contemplate making in two lifetimes, there are potent lessons to learn here.

1. Soto knows the value of his services in the open market 
2. He understands what his place in the market is
3. He is confident in the negotiation skills of his agent (Scott Boras)
4. He understands his leverage for a lucrative long term deal will likely never be better 
5. He has already beaten amazing odds on his way to success, becoming the youngest MLB player to debut in 2018 at the age of 18
6. He knows what a long term contract can do for his family members still in the Dominican Republic

As an All-Star Week postscript, Soto was able to tune out the noise of questions swirling about his contract status. He won the 2022 MLB All-Star Week Home Run Derby on Monday, blasting 53 total, including 19 in the final round.

When asked about the rumors, Soto, who answered questions in both Spanish and English for nearly 45 minutes, had this to say: “Here and there, you know. But you can’t blame that on your stats or anything you can do on the field. At the end of the day, I just try to forget about everything outside for three hours, and try to be the 12-year-old that I’ve been and play baseball as hard as I can and try to enjoy it as much as I can.”

Watch Soto’s fireworks from Dodger Stadium HERE.