Sarcasm aside, when a 23-year old phenom who’s been drawing comps to Ted Williams since he was a teenager hits the open market, you’d better believe the other 29 franchises are falling all over themselves to see who can get to the phone fastest.
Sure, some landing spots make more sense than others. For teams already in the hunt that are “one piece away,” Soto is the ultimate “one piece.” But a top-tier talent at such a young age could theoretically fit any team’s timeline for being competitive.
Soto’s contract status also makes him palatable to more teams than your typical deadline rental, since he’s under team control through 2024. Frugal teams could justify bringing him in for two or three pennant chases while his cost is still relatively low, while owners with notoriously deep pockets can one-up that and drop a bag on a record-setting extension.
Pretty much every team has an incentive to at least kick the tires on a deal, even though the asking price is probably going to be higher than anything we’ve ever seen before.
It’s no secret that the Cubs are rebuilding right now, and the bridge from the last competitive core to the next one is probably going to take longer than a lot of people originally thought. But with a rising farm system full of assets, a history of spending with the big boys, and a chance to land one of the best talents in the entire sport, should Jed Hoyer go full Vito Corleone and make the Nationals an offer they can’t refuse?
You can make a compelling argument either way.
The Cubs literally have a 0% chance of making the playoffs per FanGraphs (and per any working set of eyes), so any trade for Soto wouldn’t be with 2022 in mind. The cost-cutting sell-off period that started with the Yu Darvish trade to San Diego after the shortened 2020 season figures to continue into this coming trade deadline, with Willson Contreras (among others) all but out the door on an expiring contract.
Prospects will be on the way back, because you never know, a prospect could turn into… I don’t know… the next Juan Soto.
As a wise man once said, "a boat's a boat, but the mystery box can be anything... even a boat!" And that about sums up the logic.
The returns in the Darvish trade, as well as the trades that sent away franchise icons Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, and Javy Baez, have largely had the farm system trending in the right direction (ranked as 10th to 6th right now depending on where you look), which is encouraging. If things go “according to plan,” the return for players like Contreras and others this year can continue that trend and make the long-term outlook a little less bleak, one step at a time.
But an unavoidable truth is that a prospect, no matter how highly they’re ranked, is never a sure thing (Corey Patterson waves hello). And even though Soto is still only 23, he’s consistently been 60% better than the rest of the league offensively for the past five years now according to OPS+.
To put it differently, Soto is what a prospect turns into only in your wildest dreams, which justifies the idea that you’ll have to give up so many of them in return. One sure thing could end up looking a lot better than five “maybes,” although you can flip that logic on its head pretty easily.
This is part of the reason why general managers make the big bucks. Luckily, the real decision is above my pay grade. But useless thought exercises are right at my pay grade, so let’s dive in.
The first part of this equation has to include some rough comparison of the value you think you could get from the pieces you’re sending away to what Soto could provide over the same time period.
That would require knowing what the Nationals are looking to get back in the first place. For all we know, they could ask for the literal moon, and the actual return might not be that far off.
The Nats are in a unique place where they don’t have to shed salary to duck under the Luxury Tax, which was a factor in another recent mega-deal that sent Mookie Betts to the Dodgers. LA had to swallow the rest of David Price’s contract and give up Alex Verdugo to bring back the former AL MVP.
Washington could opt to do something similar by attaching Patrick Corbin to Soto on his way out. They’ve apparently been open to this idea, and I don’t blame them: it’s never ideal when you have to spend $50 million over the next two seasons on the worst pitcher, statistically speaking, in the entire league.
Corbin is rumored to have a partial no-trade clause, which could complicate things, but the proverbial “sources close to the situation” don’t think that would get in the way of a deal coming together.
Whether they include Corbin’s dead-weight money or not, the Nats are looking for a prospect-heavy return, presumably to restock their desolate farm system. While the Cubs system is closer to the top third of the league, Washington has consistently been ranked in the bottom third; often times, closer to 30th than 20th.
Any package that will even approach a level to get Washington’s serious attention would likely have to start around top prospect Brennen Davis. Prior to a back injury this year, Davis shot through multiple levels in 2021 while displaying plus power and a good ability to get on base at every stop. He’s played all over the outfield grass, but the bulk of his playing time has come in center field, and he has a chance to stick at that premier defensive position with his athleticism.
Davis recently dropped to the #30 prospect in baseball, but before his injury, he rose as high as the mid-teens according to most outlets. And for good reason: historically, slugging centers fielders with a good glove can be transcendent talents in their own right (see: Ken Griffey Jr., Mike Trout, etc.). But there’s always a chance a slugger like Davis, a former basketball standout with a large frame, ends up filling out a bit and ends up profiling better as a corner outfielder.
Outside of Davis, the Cubs have a quartet of players in (or right near) the Top 100 according to FanGraphs, but none of them are playing higher than High A ball right now and come with at least one major question mark in their respective profiles.
Pete Crow-Armstrong (#31) projects as an elite-fielding center fielder, and his bat may be coming along better than anticipated, but there’s still plenty to prove for him at the plate. Kevin Alcantara (#78) has long limbs and tons of raw power, but plenty of swing-and-miss concerns. Owen Cassie (#100) roughly resembles Alcantara’s profile, just from the left side of the plate and a little better discipline. James Triantos (#102, last year’s 2nd Round Draft pick) has quickly emerged as a viable middle-infield prospect with a contact/power combo that has translated well in the low minors so far.
I’d imagine any prospect-heavy package for Soto would need to include one or two of these four names as well.
Going a step deeper, Christian Hernandez in currently unranked in FanGraph’s Top 100 but could actually have the highest ceiling of any player in the system. The 18-year-old was an International Signing for the Cubs in 2021 out of the Dominican Republic, and as a 6’2” shortstop with power, immediately began drawing comparisons to Alex Rodriguez. He received a team-record $3 million dollar signing bonus, so there’s already plenty of money invested into the hype.
It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the glowing praise around young guys, especially when their tools get compared to legit legends without even stepping foot on an affiliated diamond. But it actually panned out pretty well for Soto, considering he was an International Signing out of the Dominican Republic himself in 2015. So you can never completely discount the lofty praise, you just have to take it with a grain of salt.
It’s very easy to see Hernandez heading the other way in a Soto deal as well, which would allow Washington to reload their system with bats in a staggered fashion. Should they be able to develop the three or four hitters they get in return, they can expect to add impact in the short, medium, and long-term as a result, and avoid having to foot a huge bill by varying the starts of their service time clocks.
Now, those names alone won’t cut it: the Nationals would likely want to add at least one cost-controlled, major-league-ready talent and (most importantly) pitching of any kind.
The Cubs can accommodate the former by offering up one of Ian Happ or Nico Hoerner in the deal. Happ is in arbitration through the 2023 season and just made his first All Star appearance; Hoerner will start the arbitration process next year, which will run through 2025, and he’s already posted a career-high 3.2 bWAR in less than 80 games at shortstop.
The Nationals could consider demanding both in return. There’s really no precedence for a present-day talent like this being moved at the deadline, so they’re basically writing the rule book on the fly. I’d imagine their priority would be Hoerner, because of his defensive value at shortstop and two extra years of control.
The pitching part of the equation makes things a lot tougher. It’s no secret that the Cubs haven’t been able to develop quality arms internally for years now, including during their run of contention from 2015-2020. Most of the impact arms came from free agency (Jon Lester, John Lackey, Jason Hammel) or trades (Jake Arrieta, Kyle Hendricks).
They’re are hoping to shift that narrative, after spending 26 of their last 40 draft picks on pitchers, including consecutive first-round selections of college arms in the past two drafts (Jordan Wicks in 2021, Cade Horton in 2022).
In terms of a deal for Soto, the Cubs may have to part ways with Wicks, who was just promoted to Double A after posting a K/9 near 12 and a 46% groundball rate over 16 starts at High A this year. Or they can opt to include one of a pair of names that we’ve already seen at the Major League level this year, Caleb Kilian and Justin Steele.
Kilian, the headliner in the return from the Giants in the Bryant trade, has been a mixed bag so far. The 25-year-old was touted as a close-to-major-league-ready arm at the time of the trade and seemed to confirm that after starting 2022 in Triple A. He carried an ERA below 4.00 in 14 starts despite a .360 BABIP, all while increasing his strikeout rate from his Double A level.
His call-up to the Majors was short lived, though, as he allowed more runs (15) and walks (12) than innings pitched (11.1) over three appearances. Turning the base paths into a carousel might understandably turn the Nats off of this idea, but he still has some prospect shininess to him.
Steele, 27, may not be a textbook prospect, but could slot into the back end of Washington’s rotation immediately, just as he has for the Cubs these past two seasons. The lefty has developed a plus slider and has done a great job of keeping the ball in the park this year, which helps explain why he’s already posted 1.7 fWAR this season.
So to recap, a straight up trade for Soto would have to look something like this (numbers in parentheses represent surplus values according to BaseballTradeValues.com):
- Brennen Davis (39.3)
- At least one of:
- Pete Crow-Armstrong (32.7)
- Kevin Alcantara (14.9)
- Owen Cassie (10.9)
- James Triantos (11.4)
- Christian Hernandez (19.7)
- One of:
- Ian Happ (24.4)
- Nico Hoerner (24.0)
- One of:
- Jordan Wicks (6.3)
- Caleb Killian (12.4)
- Justin Steele (18.1)
This is an absolute boatload of a haul for a single player, and we haven’t even touched on the literal cost it would take to retain Soto beyond his initial two and a half years of arbitration.
According to Baseball Trade Values (BTV), the outgoing value of this package ranges from 100.2 to 149.1. For reference, Soto alone is valued at 176.8, which is pretty mind-numbing to think about. But it’s not crazy to think a bidding war of teams salivating to add Soto’s bat to their lineup could drive the price up this high.
As mentioned, the Cubs could lower the player cost of this hypothetical trade by landing on the Corbin grenade. He’s worth -54.9 according to BTV, so these proposed packages work if he’s included, and the Cubs are certainly one of the teams with the ability to swallow that money if push came to shove. But it wouldn’t be as simple as paying Corbin huge money to ride the bench; his contract could hamstring the Cubs in their efforts to surround Soto with more talent.
As it stands now, the Cubs have a payroll of $150.4 million per Spotrac, ranking 14th in the Majors. After 2023, Jason Heyward’s contract will finally just become something that haunts our collective nightmares instead of our realities. Hendricks and Yan Gomes have $16 million and $6 million club options, respectively, on their contracts for ’24 that will almost certainly be declined, and Marcus Stroman hold’s a player option for his final contract year at $21 million.
This means there’s a non-zero chance that the Cubs could enter the 2024 season with only two players on guaranteed contracts: Seiya Suzuki and, of all people, David Bote for some reason. They’d combine to make a whopping $26.5 million, leaving a Grand Canyon’s worth of money to allocate to free agents following arbitration hearings.
The 2024 free agent class includes names like Rafael Devers, Shohei Ohtani, and my namesake Jack Flaherty, who are all young and impactful enough to help the team in both the short and the long term. Combine that with the idea that most of the prospects mentioned above are expected to be reaching the majors around the year 2025, it’s not hard to see why many people look at 2024 as the real opening of a new competitive window. It’s also not out of the question that the Cubs make a splash in 2023 Free Agency as well, with a quartet of premier shortstops likely to hit the market,
Soto himself complicates that timeline, but Corbin’s money throws a wrench into things as well. Corbin is owed $25 million in 2024, and if the Nationals were to make the Cubs pick up the deferred money in his contract, another $10 million in 2025.
Obviously, if Corbin is a Cub by 2024, so is Soto, who’s either A) going to set the record for highest arbitration contract by a sizable margin, or B) already signed a monster extension covering his arbitration years and beyond. Option B is much more likely; the Nats will probably prefer to trade Soto somewhere that ends up locking him up long-term, because that would merit a higher return than a team looking at him as a two and a half year “rental.”
Soto already turned down a 15-year, $440 million offer, which would’ve paid him about $30 million average annual value (AAV). That would’ve exceeded Trout’s contract in terms of total value, but would’ve only ranked 15th in AAV (between Manny Machado and Chris Sale).
It’s not as simple as Soto waving away more money than most of us could ever dream of. Barring severe injury, he’s roughly on pace to approach 500 homers and 100 bWAR by his mid-30’s, all with an OBP over .400. That type of production gets paid. Handsomely.
It’s also worth noting that Soto might not be as “one-dimensional” as some may have originally thought. After switching over to primarily playing right field last season, he actually posted passable DRS (4.0) and UZR (2.2) values in 2021. He’s regressed a bit this season, but that 2021 performance at least alludes to his ability to provide a little value in the field instead of being a total liability that you have to hide out in left.
His primary position being right field obviously overlaps with Suzuki, but that’s a luxury problem you address should the time come.
Let’s say the Cubs grant Soto’s wish and make him the first $500 million man in the MLB with a 13-year deal. That’s an AAV close to $38.5 million, which would be the largest value by total immediately and the largest by AAV as soon as Max Scherzer’s unicorn deal expires after 2024.
In this scenario, Soto and Corbin would combine for a total cost of over $53 million in both 2023 and 2024. This doesn’t play super well with the fact that having Soto would probably increase the urgency to field a competitive team around him, which would have to happen mostly via free agency now that basically the whole farm went east to the Nation’s Capital.
Beyond Soto and Suzuki, the Cubs would have way too many roster spots to fill before they would be considered truly competitive. Trout and Ohtani know this all too well. You could argue that the Cubs could still gradually add through free agency in 2023 as well, but that math just got tougher.
The Cubs already owe $92 million in guaranteed money in 2023; adding $53 million for Soto and Corbin takes that up to $145 million, prior to arbitration and league-minimum deals. Hoerner and/or Happ are likely gone in this scenario, which would lighten the arb bill, but the total could still come out somewhere between $20 and $30 million. For simplicity’s sake, let’s add $25 million to make it an even $160 million heading into 2023.
Call me a skeptic, but I have a hard time believe the Ricketts would be happy to foot a bill that high, even for one year, for a team of Soto, Suzuki, and not much else. Yes, Soto would instantly increase ticket sales and generate a bunch of new revenue, but that honeymoon phase could get old in a hurry if the Cubs are out of the race by June again.
And yes, the Cubs do have a history of high spending, with payroll values peaking high above league average from 2016 through 2021. But there was enough young, cost-controlled talent to project year’s worth of contention, which certainly helped validate the expenses. It will take more than Soto to truly become a contender again.
There’s enough room between that proposed value of $160 million and the new Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) threshold of $230 million to make some meaningful additions. Maybe they add one or two more meaningful pieces, like Dansby Swanson and Joe Musgrove for around $20 million AAV a piece and hope for the best. They’d still be $30 million from the CBT and set to shed at least $36 million more prior to 2024 losing Heyward, Hendricks, and Gomes.
But here again, I’m skeptical of the Ricketts’ ability to turn a 180 on payroll outlook after proclaiming “biblical losses” in the wake of the pandemic-shortened season and doing only a few medium-scale things to shift that narrative (Suzuki and Stroman). If Soto wanted to play for a “payroll-conscious” team still years from contending, he would just stay in Washington. Clearly, that’s not the case.
I think the team (and I) would like to take a more gradual approach and tackle this “rebuild” internally, instead of hitting a human fast-forward button in Soto. There are just so many risks (not to discount the potential upsides) associated with even acquiring a guy like him, much less inking him to a long-term commitment.
Let’s backtrack to the outgoing package from the Cubs perspective. Say Davis, Crow-Armstrong, Hoerner, Hernandez, and Kilian all get shipped out for Soto and Corbin. The first three have legitimate cases to be 4+ WAR players on an annual basis; Davis and Crow-Armstrong haven’t started their service clocks yet, so you could be in a situation where 12+ WAR (which is more than likely more than Soto himself will produce, but you never know…) is costing you a fraction of Soto’s AAV, for years.
If you believe the hype, Hernandez could be even more valuable, and if Kilian can regain his control, there’s value to be had in a back-end innings-eater too.
I think the swing you’re taking is just too seismic, and you’re always one freak injury away from from the brink when nearly 1/5th of your budget is being spent on one guy.
Look, I love Soto as much as the next guy, and I feel for him in this situation. I really do. He sees a non-competitive team in a great division with very few prospects and an ownership situation up in the air; I can’t blame him for wanting to sign up for more of that. But there are other teams better suited for him right now.
At least 17 teams (Cardinals, Brewers, Twins, Guardians, White Sox, Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Blue Jays, Mets, Phillies, Braves, Dodgers, Padres, Giants, Mariners, Astros) are definitively closer to contention than the Cubs are as presently constructed.
Of those teams, 12 (Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies, Braves, White Sox, Padres, Giants, Mets, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Giants, Cardinals) currently have a higher budget for payroll, which helps the Corbin and contract extension angles.
And of those 12, seven (Dodgers, Yankees, Padres, Giants, Mets, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Cardinals) have just as much or more prospect capital in their farm systems to get the Nationals’ attention.
It would be my guess that Soto likely ends up in one of those seven destinations if he goes anywhere at all. If he stays put, we can do this whole thought exercise again in colder weather.
But just like with Carlos Correa last offseason, it guess it never hurts to dream.