Yankees and Mets may be battling for more than a World Series this postseason

The Juan Soto sweepstakes that is set to take place in free agency this year is likely be one of the more exciting news stories of the offseason. Soto will likely land the second biggest contract in baseball history, trailing on the $700-million deal Shohei Ohtani signed last offseason.

When you start discussing contracts that will sit in the $550 million total value range, there are only a few teams that can keep up with this kind of money. The top two teams in this sweepstakes, as of now, are the New York Yankees and the New York Mets.

Both teams have the money for this and they've been heavily connected to Soto already. But money alone isn't going to sign him, though it's likely to be the most important piece of the puzzle, as it typically is with any Scott Boras client in free agency.

Juan Soto's free agency decision could be heavily influence by which New York team does better in the postseason this year. I'm not kidding.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason.

Juan Soto's free agency decision could depend on 2024 postseason success

Let's run through a few hypotheticals to make this thought process make a bit more sense.

For the sake of equality, let's assume that the Mets and the Yankees both offer Soto very similar monetary contracts, somewhere in the $550 million range. This is expected. Both teams will likely offer very similar contracts in terms of total and average annual value.

The first scenario. The Yankees go and win the World Series while the Mets get bounced in the Wild Card round. Soto is a big part of the puzzle and the Yankees look like a dynasty. Which team would Soto be more likely to sign with? Obviously the Yankees.

Now, let's look at the opposite scenario. The Yankees get bounced in the first round, where Judge struggles and the Yankees fire Aaron Boone because of it. The Mets go and win the World Series. Who's more likely to sign Soto? Probably the Mets at this point.

Nobody wants to be a loser. I'm not saying that Soto is going to ring chase or that his decision is going to completely depend on postseason success. That would be crazy.

But what I am saying is that this postseason is going to be very important in the offseason negotiations for Soto. It's not likely that any other team competes with the Mets or the Yankees is terms of how much money they're going to offer Soto. If these contracts end up being very similar, each team is going to need as many bargaining chips as possible to lock Soto down for the next 10 to 15 years.

A World Series title in 2024 would be one heck of a bargaining chip.