MLB owner rules his team out of Juan Soto sweepstakes

If you had odds on Colorado Rockies owner Dick Monfort being the first owner of a Major League Baseball team to rule himself out of the Juan Soto sweepstakes, congratulations.

The Rockies, courtesy of an email from Monfort himself shared on social media by its recipient, are officially out of the bidding on the offseason's biggest free agent. Only five teams met with Soto in person in November. The Rockies were not among them, so this hardly constitutes a surprise.

The only surprise is that an MLB owner is responding to fan emails speculating about free agent activity in the first place — though this is hardly out of character for Monfort. RotoBaller's Kevin Larson once garnered a reply from Monfort to an email asking if the Rockies would trade for Shohei Ohtani.

Thursday, Monfort replied to Larson's email regarding Soto only seven minutes after it was sent, shattering his previous record of eight minutes.

Larson shared the screenshot of Monfort's reply on Twitter/X:

I can confirm that the Colorado Rockies are indeed OUT in regards to the Juan Soto chase, but not for the reasons you'd expect pic.twitter.com/LdMzGTJV4c
— Kevin (Only Bo Nix can save us now) (@_Kevlar23_) December 5, 2024

"Is there any chance we could land Juan Soto?" Larson asks.

"He has said publicly he wants to stay on East Coast," Monfort replied, followed by "Sent from my iPhone."

The implication is that the Rockies did not engage in the bidding on Soto because Denver is geographically west of his desired landing spot. That didn't stop the Los Angeles Dodgers from jumping into the Soto bidding. It's unclear what statement Monfort is referring to, since Soto said in May he was "not closing any doors" when it came to his next team.

So did the Rockies' owner just eliminate the Dodgers too, or is he just unwilling to admit he couldn't justify investing time or money into a generational free agent?

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