The 2022 Nationals discovered themselves at a crossroads. Washington had offered on the prior yr’s commerce deadline, transport Max Scherzer and Trea Turner to the Dodgers, sending Kyle Schwarber to the Purple Sox, dealing Daniel Hudson to the Padres and buying and selling Jon Lester to the Cardinals. The group’s steadfast hope had been that even whereas rebuilding, Juan Soto could be on the coronary heart of these efforts to construct again up. Longtime normal supervisor Mike Rizzo acknowledged as a lot in June, plainly stating on the file that he had no intention of buying and selling Soto.
The Nats provided Soto an extension reportedly price $440MM in assured cash. It could’ve been the biggest deal in MLB historical past on the time. Solely after Soto turned that provide down — drawing loads of criticism for doing so — did Washington start to significantly discover the potential for buying and selling him. Transferring the sport’s greatest younger hitter when he had two and a half seasons of membership management remaining was no small endeavor. It’d require a seismic haul of younger expertise — the kind of prospect bundle that a number of events merely did not have the stock to assemble. Most different golf equipment merely could not abdomen the asking value.
A restricted market of suitors for Soto emerged. To nobody’s shock, the hyper-aggressive Padres entered the bidding and made a powerful push. San Diego president of baseball operations A.J. Preller throws his hat within the ring when almost any star-caliber participant is accessible. From the second Soto hit the market, the Padres — then armed with considered one of baseball’s greatest farm programs — had been among the many most rational touchdown spots.
San Diego certainly wound up reeling of their large fish, and it took the kind of commerce haul we’d not see once more for years to come back. Soto and Josh Bell went from the Nats to the Padres in alternate for shortstop CJ Abrams, left-hander MacKenzie Gore, outfielder James Wooden, outfielder Robert Hassell III and right-hander Jarlin Susana. The Padres additionally despatched first baseman Luke Voit to the Nats as one thing of a monetary counterweight, and in a separate deal they shipped Eric Hosmer — who’d invoked his no-trade rights to dam his inclusion within the Soto commerce — to the Purple Sox.
It was a jaw-dropping haul. Abrams, Gore and Hassell had all been top-10 draft picks throughout the previous 5 seasons. Abrams was a consensus top-10 prospect within the sport on the time. Gore had struggled by way of some mechanical points within the higher minors however was just a few years faraway from being one of many consensus high pitching prospects within the recreation. Wooden was a 19-year-old who was only a yr faraway from being a second-round choose, and his inventory was firmly on the rise on the time of the swap as he ripped by way of A-ball. Hassell entered the 2022 season as a top-40 prospect within the recreation. Susana was solely 18 on the time of the commerce and was in his first season of professional ball after signing out of his native Dominican Republic; Baseball America likened his upside to that of a excessive schooler who would possibly go within the first spherical of the MLB draft.
Whereas not each blockbuster commerce pans out — Washington hasn’t gotten a ton of worth from that Scherzer/Turner stunner, as an example — the Soto commerce has produced a bumper crop that appears more likely to kind the nucleus of the following contending Nationals membership.
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