Red Sox hoping for an additional meeting with Juan Soto

By this time next week, theres a good chance Juan Soto will have picked his destination.

As the star outfielder weighs multiple offers at or above $600M, the top of the market waits.

At least one team is hoping for another sitdown with Soto and agent Scott Boras.

Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports that Red Sox brass has expressed interest in another meeting at which Sotos camp would name the price necessary to get a deal done.

Thats an effort to avoid being unknowingly outbid at the end.

It seems the Sox are worried about the Mets in particular.

Speier writes that Soxs brass has heard rumors that Mets owner Steve Cohen has promised Boras that hed beat the best offer made by any other team by $50M.

To be clear, Speier is not reporting on the veracity of that rumor itself.

Speier is neither confirming nor denying that Cohen made such offer.

The Globes report only mentions that the Sox are concerned enough that the rumor might be true that theyre hopeful of getting Soto and Boras to name a specific price.

Its not clear if Boras and Soto have any interest in doing so.

Theres value for Soto in playing teams uncertainties against each other.

Relaying the specifics of every offer to each team in the race would eventually result in a highest bidder, but itd also limit the possibility that one club goes well beyond whatever is on the table from the others.

There have seemingly been five legitimate suitors for Soto: the Mets, Yankees, Blue Jays, Red Sox and Dodgers.

Various reports have cast the Dodgers as a long shot.

The general view is that Los Angeles entered the mix mostly to gauge whether Sotos market might not materialize quite the way hed envisioned.

With multiple teams putting $600M+ offers out there, that hasnt been the case.

MLB.coms Mark Feinsand wrote last night that the Dodgers were unlikely to land him.

Speier confirms that the Red Sox recently upped their offer to $600M.

The Athletic reported on Tuesday that every team that still had a chance at Soto had hit or topped that mark.

(Thats not necessarily a declaration that all five teams mentioned above had offered $600M+, as its possible he has privately narrowed the field to exclude one or more of them.) Most observers still expect it to come down to one of the New York franchises, though the Sox and Jays have seemingly made full-fledged pushes to get themselves in the conversation.

One big spender that made little effort on Soto: the Phillies.

Matt Gelb of The Athletic reports that Philadelphia brass never met with his camp.

While the Phils havent shied away from big-ticket free agent pursuits, it seems they never believed they had a realistic chance to land Soto.

Philadelphia owner John Middleton said a month ago that he felt theyd merely be used to drive up the bidding for Soto to sign with one of the New York teams (link via Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer ).

Whether or not that wouldve been the case, Gelb writes that the Phillies felt it best to prioritize other avenues they found more realistic.

This article first appeared on MLB Trade Rumors and was syndicated with permission..

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