12:33 p.m.: While the initial moves of the deal also involved San Diego first baseman Eric Hosmer going to Washington, that was canceled after Hosmer refused to waive his no-trade rights. Soto is still expected to head to the Padres, but it’s unclear if/how Hosmer’s refusal could affect the rest of the trade. 10:50 a.m.: Left-hander MacKenzie Gore is also in the deal, reports Jim Bowden of the Athletic ( Twitter link ). 10:47 a.m.: The Padres and Nationals agree to a deal that sends Soto and first baseman Josh Bell to San Diego, Morosi reports. San Diego will return rookie shortstop CJ Abrams, top outfield prospect Robert Hassell III, right-hander Jarlin Susana and top outfield prospect James Wood, according to Morosi. 10:43 a.m.: The Padres are “on the verge” of acquiring Juan Soto from the Nationals, MLB.com’s Jon Morosi tweeted. He adds that the talks are in their “final stages”. Bob Nightengale of USA Today first reported that the teams were nearing an agreement on a deal. It’s a stunning blockbuster, one of the most seismic trades in major league history. There is almost no recent precedent for a player of Soto’s caliber to have been dealt, especially not with multiple seasons remaining in club control. The left-footed forward is among the game’s greatest players, a superstar who hasn’t aged amazingly at 24. Soto made his major league debut as a 19-year-old in 2018, having played just eight games above A-ball at the time. Even keeping his head above water would be impressive in this context, but Soto immediately entered the majors as one of the league’s best players. Soto hit .292/.406/.517 in 116 games as a rookie. He followed that up with back-to-back elite offensive seasons, looking well on his way to becoming an all-time great hitter. Between 2019-21, Soto hit .304/.440/.561. He averaged more than 25 home runs per year (even with his 2020 schedule dramatically reduced) and had far more walks than strikeouts. Soto has finished in the top ten in NL MVP voting every season, including a runner-up finish last season. He was an integral part of the Nationals’ World Series win in 2019, following up a .282/.401/.548 regular season performance with a .277/.373/.554 showing during that year’s postseason. Along the way, Soto won a pair of Silver Slugger Awards and was selected to the 2021 All-Star Game. The 2022 campaign wasn’t Soto’s best, but a “down” season by his standards would be a career year for most players. Through 436 plate appearances, he is hitting .246/.408/.485. He walks in 20.9% of his MLB outings while striking out just 14.2% of the time. He is tied for 17th in the majors with 21 long balls and is third among hitters with 200+ plate appearances in on-base percentage (.408). That’s despite a .243 average on balls in play that is easily the lowest mark of his career, falling short of the .330 career mark he hit on the season. The fewer balls in play results reflect a slight drop in the quality of his batted ball, but Soto’s expected metrics and exit velocities are better than his actual batting average and slugging performance might suggest. It wasn’t that long ago that trading a hitter of this caliber would have seemed unfathomable. The Nationals are less than three years away from their aforementioned championship. Even after a last-place finish in 2020, Washington was in win-now mode heading into 2021. A disaster just before last summer’s trade deadline landed them near the bottom of the National League and started a major reboot which saw stars like Max Scherzer. Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber left at last summer’s deadline. However, all of those players were in their final season and half were under control, while Soto was still more than three years away from free agency at the time. There was seemingly never any consideration on the part of the Nats to deal him either last summer or during the offseason. That continued to be the case as recently as two months ago, when Washington general manager Mike Rizzo stated unequivocally that the club was “not trading” Soto. This was before the club’s last (and ultimately final) attempt to sign him to a long-term deal. After Soto rejected a 13-year, $350 million extension offer last offseason, the Nationals re-engaged with his representatives this summer. Soto again rejected the Nationals’ prospects — this time a 15-year, $440 million offer — and the club turned to the trade market. One could certainly argue whether this was the right course of action for the franchise. Even if the organization was convinced that signing Soto to an extension was untenable, they didn’t have to move him this summer. Soto is arbitration eligible through 2024, so Washington could hold onto him until next winter or simply go year-by-year through the arb process and try to rebuild a competitive roster around Soto. Rizzo and his staff decided against that course of action. The Nationals have a barren farm system and have cut payroll in recent seasons while the Lerner family explores selling the franchise. Turning around a team that enters play today with an NL-worst 35-69 record over the next two years would be a huge challenge even with Soto on the roster, and the Nats are now fully embracing a rebuild that will likely take multiple seasons . This decision will be a tough pill to swallow for at least some portion of the fan base. Washington has now seen the departures of Scherzer, Turner, Anthony Rendon and Soto in recent years – dramatically overhauling the franchise’s best club since moving to Washington. They’re certainly optimistic that players like Josiah Gray, Keibert Ruiz and the package of young players they’re getting in the Soto deal will form the core of another contender down the road, but there’s no denying how quickly the Nationals fell off the top. after winning the title three seasons ago. On the other side of the equation, the Padres land one of the sport’s preeminent superstars to bolster an already star-studded roster. The Friars have gone in the opposite direction of the Nationals in recent years, coming out of their 2020 rebuild with an excellent young core after years of building the farm system. President of baseball operations AJ Preller and his team have shown a willingness to swing for baseball talent time and time again. They signed Hosmer and Manny Machado to massive free agent contracts and made blockbuster deals for players like Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Mike Clevinger. Because as aggressive as Preller has been in his eight years running in baseball, he’s never had a two-day workout like this. The Friars sent closer Taylor Rogers, righty Dinelson Lamet and two prospects to sign star closer Josh Hader from the Brewers yesterday. Now comes the kind of blockbuster that will define his tenure in the front office. The Padres enter Tuesday’s game with a 58-46 record. They sit in second place in the National League for a wild card and potential playoff berth, but even the addition of Soto and Hader is unlikely to give them much of a chance to erase a 12-game deficit on the Dodgers in the NL West. The signing is as much about solidifying their position in a playoff spot for this season as it is about adding another impact bat alongside Fernando Tatis Jr. and Machado for the next few seasons. The Padres could theoretically try to woo Soto’s representatives at the Boras Corporation about a potential long-term deal, but the more likely scenario seems to be that he spends the rest of his arbitration periods in San Diego. To complete the deal, the Friars reportedly outbid some of their National League competitors. The Cardinals and Dodgers were generally considered among San Diego’s top contenders in bidding for Soto, and there’s certainly an added bonus in keeping him away from teams San Diego could conceivably face in the postseason for years to come. Preller and his staff probably have little satisfaction in beating the Dodgers’ offers to Soto after Los Angeles swooped in to land Scherzer from Washington last summer — shortly after reports surfaced that San Diego was nearing a deal Scherzer with the Nats. While Soto is obviously the key piece of the deal, Bell is much more than a utility outfielder (assuming he stays on the deal after Hosmer declines to waive his no-trade rights). He’s one of the top bats to change hands this summer himself, a player ranked #3 on MLBTR’s list of top trade deadline prospects. Bell is one of the most well-rounded players in the sport. He’s a switch bat, hitting 37 home runs with the Pirates in 2019. While that was probably inflated somewhat by the livelier baseball used that season, Bell has continued to hit for above-average power in recent years. afterward. After a down year in the hit-shortened 2020 campaign, Bell rebounded to connect on 27 longballs in his first season in Washington. He has hit 14 more homers and 24 doubles in 437 plate appearances this season. Unlike most players of his ilk, Bell also brings strong bat-to-ball skills to the table. He’s striking out in just 14% of his trips this season, the lowest rate since his rookie season and well below the league average. Bell combined that with quality plate discipline manifested in an 11.2% walk rate and a .302/.384/.493 overall line. Since being traded to Washington heading into the 2021 season, he’s a .278/.363/.483 hitter in a hair over 1000 plate appearances. Bell is a pure rental as he will be a free agent for the first time…
