jUaN soTo iS GoINg tO yOuR FaVOriTe tEaM foR a BAg of pEAnuTs enD Of pOSt YaaAaAAaaaAAyYyYYy.
Hold on just a second. There are plenty of other stars that the Nationals could trade at this year’s Deadline. Josh Bell is having one of his best seasons in the Bigs and, in my humble opinion, is the best hitter on the market. Nelson Cruz could be on the block for Washington. How about Carl Edwards or Sean Doolittle? These guys will definitely not be a part of the next great Nationals roster, so they’re the obvious trade candidates out of DC. Soto is still under team control for two-and-a-half years and the Nats could easily come up with a better offer than the one most recently rejected by Soto’s camp (aka Scott Boras, the Chaos Prince of MLB Player Transactions). On top of all that, he’s the best pure hitter in the National League and he’s 23 years old.
For those confused about what the previous paragraph is talking about, Juan Soto is officially on the trade market after rejecting a 15-year, $440 million contract from the Nationals (just south of a $30 million AAV). The second half of the baseball season is truly upon us.
Insane, right? The last time a trade of this magnitude for a player with so much potential was even thought of as possible among MLB executives was Miguel Cabrera to the Tigers in 2007. A Juan Soto trade to any team, let alone a team that could be in a position to win with him, would shake up the baseball world at its core. But if you really think about it, the Nats should not feel forced to deal him in 2022, or even later, for that matter. And yet, the consensus around the league seems to be that Soto will be traded.
Even going back to their time as the Expos, the Washington Nationals have always been bad at maintaining stability. Bryce Harper signed a 13-year, team-friendly deal with the Phillies for the 2019 season and beyond, while Anthony Rendon took loads of money to sign with the Angels after the Nats won the 2019 World Series. Sure, the Rendon deal looks bad in hindsight, but my point is that Washington just isn’t putting the right amount of care into the right assets at their disposal as a franchise. One of my signature baseball sayings, along with “batting average wins MVPS” and “you don’t play the what-if game” is that good franchises win baseball games. A lot of that has to do with being in a big market, I’ll admit, but the bulk of the teams that are in contention for the postseason, no matter the year, have awesome organizational support, whether that support come from the front office, the Minor League system, or Major League dugouts. I love to use the 2021 Giants as an example of this, who squeezed the value out of so many players you wouldn’t expect to help create a juggernaut, which led San Fran to a franchise-record 107 wins. That is what I call a good franchise. Other examples of these so-called “good franchises” are the Yankees, Braves, and Rays. And no, I refuse to put the Mets on that list just because they chucked money at a bunch of free agents. Sorry, Steve Cohen.
The Nationals are notoriously behind analytically and have a barren farm system. They are in no position to try to compete (and it seems like they’ve been tanking since they won it all in 2019), yet they managed to stumble upon the greatest youngster of this generation. I ask the following question to many of my friends and they all have the same answer: if you were to start a franchise with one player in baseball, who would it be? No one says Acuna. No one says Devers. No one says Nando. No one even says Judge. It’s always Juan Soto. Like I said before, Soto is only 23. Along with that youth, he has a godly walk rate, bat-to-ball skills that are second to none, and power beyond your wildest dreams. He’s the definition of a franchise player, but the Nats are ready to move him. This is a “bad franchise” move.
Trading Juan Soto to any team when he’s as young and great a baseball player as he is won’t erase the problems that the Nationals have as an organization. In fact, trading Soto will only augment the internal problems of an organization that took 50 years to appear in its first Fall Classic. Somehow, the Nats got lucky with Soto’s development, but have struck out on a lot of other prospects over the years. Would getting back half a dozen highly-touted prospects in exchange for Soto change the fact that Washington’s player development is sub-par? And what will happen when those prospects make the Majors, where they will be left treading water among a sea of highly-developed, analytically-enlightened peers? I’ll answer those questions by saying this. Quantity does not trump quality when there’s a bottleneck towards improving the quality of the quantity in question. Basically, the Nationals need to mount the “teach a man to fish” saying in their offices. Natural ability will only get players so far in this world.
It's the structure of an organization that determines the sustainability of a franchise. Players will come and go, but in order to keep the very fabric of a team alive and preserve the story of baseball itself, you need to be a well-oiled machine. It’s all about being dynamic, working with players microscopically to become not just a winner, but a dynasty. It might seem easy to make the splashy signings and trades, but it never lasts. Look at the Angels right now, gasping for air as the team stumbles towards the end of another disappointing season, with two of the game’s biggest stars, Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, batting at the top of the order. Saying that Trout doesn’t have a single playoff win in his 11-year career isn’t a dig at him at all; it’s a dig at the Angels, who have failed to see the bigger picture in terms of evolving like most of the league has.
What’s ironic about what I’m saying here is that it would be way cheaper and way more fortuitous to invest in a good organization than to go out and sign the big free agents. Maybe with more accountability and wherewithal, the Nationals wouldn’t have signed Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin to crazy contracts, and this conversation that sports fans everywhere are having right now about Soto would be an afterthought. Look, Washington, don’t be like the Angels. Look at your team’s history and the whisperings around the league and ask yourselves: will putting a bandage on this problem that we’ve had for half a century be enough, or is it time we take this “baseball organization” thing seriously? Improve the intelligence of the culture across the organization and bring long-lasting glory to Juan Soto and Nats fans everywhere. Wake up and smell the cherry blossoms, Washington.
Comments