Juan Soto reportedly turned down an offer of $440 million over 15 years from the Washington Nationals in the summer of 2022. He’s represented by the super-agent Scott Boros, who had worked out deals with Washington in the past for free agents as high-profile as Max Scherzer.
With uncertainty about the MASN situation and the Lerner family at the time weighing the sale of the team, Nats’ president Mike Rizzo began operating under the assumption that Boros would be seeking a new deal for Soto that the Nationals could not afford. So the young superstar, with nearly a season-and-a-half before reaching free-agency, was traded to San Diego at the end of July 2022.
The Padres sent shortstop CJ Abrams, lefty starter MacKenzie Gore, right-hander Jarlin Susana, outfielders James Wood and Robert Hassell III, and 1B/DH Luke Voit to D.C.. Voit was a throw-in to help replace first-baseman Josh Bell, who the Nats sent to San Diego with Soto. Abrams immediately became the Nats starting shortstop and Gore joined the starting rotation in 2023. The others are hot prospects expected to reach the majors later this season or early in 2025. From the Nationals’ perspective, so far, so good.
In early March 2024, in an interview with The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner, Soto made it clear his preference had been to play his entire career in a Nationals’ uniform.
Here’s what he told Kirschner:
Q: Do you wish that you could have spent your entire career in Washington?
Yeah, 100 percent. I never wanted to leave Washington. It was a great team. I knew everybody there, from the bottom all the way to the top. I was really comfortable and it felt like home for me. I was happy. I had a house in Washington.
I was really comfortable. Out of nowhere, they made that decision. They thought it was the best thing for the team.…. That’s one of the things I really respected from Rizzo. He was really clear about the trade stuff. But definitely I never thought I was going to leave D.C. I was really thinking I was going to stay there for my whole career….
The first time I got traded, it really hurt big time. I’ve said it before but I cried the whole morning….(Washington) was the team that gave me a chance from when I was a little kid. They saw me when I was 15 years old. They saw me grow up. I grew through the organization. I felt the best in that organization.”
Now a Yankee, but a free agent at season’s end, Soto will be great demand. Would the Lerner family, no longer planning to sell, make an offer to try to get Soto back and would it be substantial enough by the Boros standard? It’s hard to imagine.
Still, for a guy of Soto’s ability and with his professed love of D.C., Nationals’ fans can always hope.
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