From ESPN+, backdoored with archive.is so the whole article can be read. Also, this was going to be a bidding war no matter what -- there were no counterproposals from Boras, no way anyone could lock him in by leading with huge deal and avoiding competition.
EVERYTHING HAS A price, as the old saying goes, and nobody knows that better than a billionaire -- or Scott Boras. Sometimes baseball's owners will ask Boras for a takedown price on his clients -- the ceiling bid at which the offer will land a player. During the monthlong negotiations for the slugger, Boston Red Sox owners John Henry and Tom Werner inquired about what that number might be.Boras explained to the Red Sox owners that in the case of Soto, with his strike zone mastery and his unique ability to lift teammates with his indomitable confidence, there was no such takedown price. The final number would go as far as the bidding billionaires pushed it, and through weeks of meetings and negotiations, the owners kept piling more money into their proposals, fully inspired, wholly invested.