Chicago Cubs context on the size of the Juan Soto contract

While my main point here is to have fun with the context, if there’s one small point you want to take away along with the fun, let it be this: The Chicago Cubs haven’t really signed many big contracts. But you already knew that.

The New York Mets have signed superstar outfielder Juan Soto to a record 15-year, $765 million contract. By definition, no other baseball team has signed such an extensive contract. It is a matter of aggravated air, especially considering that there are no shifts. This is a “real” $765 million contract that wipes out all other previous deals.

However, there were several other teams willing to spend more than $700 million on Soto, and we know that there are many $200 million contracts in baseball (a threshold the Cubs never exceeded) .

What I then became curious about “for fun”: How many of the Cubs’ largest contracts in team history would you have to add up to get to $765 million? How many current Cubs contracts?

The biggest deals in Chicago Cubs history are as follows:

Jason Heyward – 8 years, $184 million
Dansby Swanson – 7 years, $177 million
Jon Lester – 6 years, $155 million
Alfonso Soriano – 8 years, $136 million
Yu Darvish – 6 years, $126 million

These are actually the only nine-figure deals in the club’s history. And when you add all five together, you get a total guaranteed of $778 million, just a touch more than what the Mets gave Soto alone. These are the five BIGGEST deals in Chicago Cubs history, spanning nearly two decades of work…and they just barely surpass the Soto deal.

This is also mostly just for fun. But you can look at it in two contexts: how big the Soto deal is or how little the Cubs have played in the deepest part of the pool.

Also, bonus fun: If you add up all of the Cubs’ current ten guaranteed contracts on the books, it comes to less than $600 million. The Mets completely dwarfed that by signing just one player.