I Want My Rival To Acquire Juan Soto

Poetry and prose for the trade deadline

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I want my rival to acquire Juan Soto,
Don’t settle for Perez, neither Sal nor Roberto,
The price is so steep,
Your farm once so deep,
Soon you’ll have no one to go to.

News leaked out two weeks ago that Nationals right fielder Juan Soto had turned down an extension offer worth $440 million over 15 years. Shortly thereafter, the trade rumors began. I’ve been so caught up in the possibilities that I’ve taken to limerick to process my thoughts.

The Nationals, a franchise expected to sell soon for at least $2 billion (that’s B-I-L-L-I-O-N), have been forced into an uncomfortable position.

Though they don’t have to trade Soto, the public nature of the rejected offer and the active talks around the player don’t leave any room for backpedaling.

The Nats don’t have to trade him because he’s under team control through the 2024 season. That control is what makes him so valuable. Whichever team acquires him is entitled to his services for the next two-plus regular seasons — and three postseasons.

Last season, at the age of 22, he was runner-up for NL MVP. One year prior, he finished fifth. He’s a perennial MVP candidate on a Hall of Fame trajectory.

Soto’s relative youth makes him all the more spectacular. That he has more walks than strikeouts through the first five years of his career — in this era of baseball — validates the comparisons to Ted Williams.

I am fascinated, perhaps even a bit obsessed, by the potential trade of Soto and what he’d bring in return.

Perhaps the greatest impediment to the Nats finding a trade partner is that he is too valuable. The prospect package a team should have to offer in return for DC’s most powerful (Dominican) Republican would decimate even the most fertile farm systems.

That got me thinking: Should fans, even executives, hope that a division rival lands the player given the expected acquisition cost?

The game is played to win. The ultimate goal is to win the World Series, not to assemble the best farm system.

Acquiring Soto increases the odds of any team’s quest for a title. It’s a win-now proposition of equal parts risk and reward.

I want Juan Soto to go to my rival,
World Series or bust, a game of survival,
Keep the ball in play,
Pitch him down and away,
Such a shame, championship deprival.

I wrote an article for Baseball Prospectus earlier this week stating that the Padres need to trade for Soto because their current roster construction makes them a win-now-or-maybe-next-year team. Who better to add than Soto?

In that piece, which you can find here and access for free with a “basic” (free) subscription to BP, I look at the financial investment made by the Padres to sign the prospects they used to acquire their current starting rotation. All five of those pitchers — Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, Blake Snell, Mike Clevinger, and Sean Manaea — came to San Diego via trade.

To me, the Pads are pot committed; their opponents’ hands no longer dictate their strategy. The expiring contracts of the entire rotation after this season and next demand an all-in play.

The Dodgers and Cardinals are also in windows of contention, and both organizations have the prospect capital to appeal to those in our nation’s capital.

The Dodgers’ ability to develop prospects and carry one of the largest payrolls in the game makes them a bit more resistant to the longer-term effects of parting ways with the upper echelon of minor-league talent. They could even entertain doling out what figures to be the largest contract in MLB history once Soto reaches free agency — but that’s more of a 2024 issue.

I want my rival to acquire Juan,
Five young studs the trade relies upon,
Don’t be a villain,
Give him his half a billion,
Scott Boras sure loves this phenomenon.

While technically the Nationals don’t have to trade him, Soto’s value will never be higher. A deal is a foregone conclusion now, and eventually the team’s leverage will start to slip away — even with such a great player.

Do I want my rival to acquire the chosen?
Their team will flourish as soon as he goes in,
Comped to Teddy Ballgame,
No one could ever be the same,
Does Soto want to end up frozen?

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