On the most recent episode of the McCovey Chroncast — leave a five star rating and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!!!! — Bryan and I discussed the upcoming trade deadline, including topics such as:
Should the Giants buy or sell
Hey, Juan Soto’s available!
Will ownership even let the Giants WHOA WHOA WHOA WHAT WAS THAT LET’S GO BACK TO THE LAST ONE
Juan Soto is available on the trade market. Juan Soto is a generational talent. The Giants are lacking in generational talents. The Giants should acquire Juan Soto.
I think you’ll find my logic is airtight.
Soto, obviously, is going to cost a lot. First, he’ll cost a lot in prospects, because he’s one of the best players in baseball and he’s only 23 years old. Second, he’ll cost a lot in money, since paying enough to keep him around for his entire career is basically the only way it would be worth giving up the king’s ransom in prospects it would take to trade for him.
Now, within the last couple of weeks, Soto rejected a huge contract from the Nationals that would have been a 15-year deal for $440 million. The deal, then, would have to be for more money than that. Soto’s agent is also Scott Boras, who famously likes to test the market for his clients. The deal, then, would have to be for much more money than that to prevent Soto from being available to every team.
On the podcast, I suggested 12 years and $480 million, but we could honestly just move that up to $500 million just to get the deal locked in. 12 years, $500 million. Around $42 million a year.
But that’s not all! Because here was the deal I proposed:
THE GIANTS GET: Juan Soto, Patrick Corbin
THE NATIONALS GET: Kyle Harrison, Luis Matos, Camilo Doval, Will Bednar (or Eric Silva or Mason Black or any other pitcher in San Jose)
Having thought about it for a couple of days, I’d add a little more. I think the Giants would also give up an outfielder on the 40-man, and the Nationals could take their pick, but I’d imagine they’d go with either Austin Slater (in the majors and a perfectly fine player) or Heliot Ramos (plenty of potential, but having a bad year). With the year he’s having, Luis Gonzalez would be a candidate too, considering all the team control the Nationals would get. Even LaMonte Wade Jr could be the outfielder. Any of them would be worth including in this deal without a second thought.
I think the Giants would also have to throw in another solid prospect. I think they can avoid putting Marco Luciano in the deal, but we’re still talking either a talented-guy-who-hasn’t-put-it-together-yet (Patrick Bailey, Hunter Bishop) or a promising-guy-in-the-lower-minors (Aeverson Arteaga, Nick Swiney).
That might seem like a quantity-over-quality deal, and it is, but it’s not unreasonable. Harrison and Matos are legitimately top prospects, and Doval is a major league closer with elite stuff. Will Bednar was a first round pick last year, the outfielder gives them someone to play in the short term (or, if they’d prefer Ramos, an interesting project in the longer term), and the last solid prospect — who could be a player to be named later to give the Nationals even more time to evaluate if they want it — would be a Luis Castillo-like lottery ticket.
“Remember Luis Castillo for Casey McGehee?” Farhan Zaidi could ask Mike Rizzo. “Our scouts might be idiots!”
And then there’s Corbin. If it’s true that the Nationals are trying to clear payroll as much as possible so that they can maximize profit when the Lerners sell the team (which is coming up soon, from all reports), then taking Corbin’s last two years at $60 million would be pretty appealing. This is what could allow the Giants to keep Luciano in their system.
This was, really, a big part of the reason that the Giants could justify not spending money over the offseason. At the time, they emphasized the need for “financial flexibility,” and what could possibly be a better use of financial flexibility than getting a superstar who hasn’t even turned 24 yet? As much as we’d all love for Charles Johnson to have even more money to spend on politics, this seems like the path the team has been planning to take, if not with Soto, than with some great player who would become available.
With all that justification for how the Giants could get Soto, I still don’t know if it’s enough. The talent in the Giants system is in Low-A and Hi-A, and a team with more promising players at higher levels, including young talent in the majors, would have the upper hand. However, I don’t know that there are a lot of other teams with the ability and desire to take on Corbin’s whole contract.
What it comes down to, then, is whether the Nationals are going to make the best baseball decision or the best business decision. The best hope that Giants fans have of getting Juan Soto is that the Nationals will symbolize the internal rot that characterizes modern baseball, and chase the cost savings over adding talent. Other teams can offer more talent, closer to the majors. The Giants can offer money.
One problem that could arise is that the Nationals might demand the Giants also take Stephen Strasburg’s contract, which pays him $35 million through 2026. It would get tough to construct a competitive roster in 2023-2024 when you’re paying $65 million a year to pitchers who you don’t actually expect to pitch. Maybe that would be the backbreaker that makes the deal fall apart. Maybe the deal already fell apart because it was unrealistic of me to find a way to keep Luciano out of it. I don’t know because I can’t say what the Nationals’ priorities are.
After having written all this, it doesn’t seem likely that the Giants will get Soto. The Cardinals have tons of young talent, both at the major league level and just below it. The Dodgers have tons of young talent, both at the major league level and just below it. The Padres…well, you get the point.
The Giants don’t have the majors-ready players that the Nationals are said to want. Well, they do have one (1) shiny Logan Webb, but it would be hard to imagine the team giving up their only long-term core piece in any deal. The Giants have payroll room, but that probably won’t be enough to make up for the talent deficit. I don’t want to say they don’t have a shot. But even if they included Luciano in this deal, that might still not be enough. Unless the Nationals are higher on David Villar than anyone knows, the Giants are starting this competition from behind. It’s hard to see them getting Soto.
The failures of the farm system have been a problem for the Giants this year. Now they’re a new problem, that probably won’t allow the team to trade for a superstar. It’s a shame, but the Giants have had a lot to be ashamed of this year, so at least we’re used to it.
Can Strasburg be traded while he is on the 60 day IL?