I think people are making way too big of a deal out of Soto turning down the money that he got. He's already won a championship and is a 23 year old superstar on track for the Hall of Fame. He has complete control over the rest of his career. He's earning $17M this season and even if he breaks his leg tomorrow and is out for the year he's still getting $20M+ the next year and likely $25M+ the year after. He's already set for life as are his future generations. The odds of him sustaining a literally career ending injury are very low, and his 50th percentile outcome as a player moving forward is still earning him $200-300M on the conservative side.
When you have no risk, why not bet on yourself and see how well you can really do without being constrained to negotiating against only one (bad) team? This isn't an Ozzie Albies scenario where you might accept getting swindled when you're making league min. because you have to consider that the risk of sustaining an injury could actually screw up you and your family's future especially given the situation you grew up in. Juan Soto retires tomorrow and he's already in the 1%, or he retires 2.5 seasons from now and he has $60M in earnings, or most likely he continues down his current path and he's making an absurd amount of money but his lifestyle isn't changing that much.