According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, Washington Nationals outfielder Juan Soto has rejected a 15-year deal for $440 million.
Considering that offer would be the most lucrative in MLB history as the biggest contract (by money) is Mike Trout’s 12-year, $426.5 million and by length, it’s Bryce Harper’s 13-year, $330 million deal, it is a bit surprising that Soto turned down the offer.
But since he turned it down, the Washington Nationals are much more likely to trade him either at the trade deadline or this offseason. He has two more seasons of arbitration eligibility, meaning that if a team traded for him before this trade deadline, they’d be acquiring him for about seven weeks of this season and two more years.
In other words, it will take a huge haul for a team to acquire him.
Here are five teams that could (or should) trade for him.
The Los Angeles Dodgers could trade for Juan Soto
The Los Angeles Dodgers have a good farm system (#5 farm system among the 30 MLB teams, according to MLB.com entering the season). Considering that they have just about infinite money, they could also afford to pay Soto for the next two seasons and, perhaps, even long-term as well.
Most teams that have the prospects that they do aren’t willing to trade them (because, again, the Dodgers have infinite money and most other teams don’t).
If they did trade for Soto, this proposal by Jeff Passan of ESPN could possibly get it done but it would be a massive deal.
Every team has an algorithm that assigns a dollar value to a player. These numbers from @BaseballValues are one example of those. Cannot imagine the Dodgers would do a deal like this. But it gives you a sense of just how much talent the Nationals would look to reap for Juan Soto. pic.twitter.com/53GknQWV4b
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 16, 2022
If they acquired him this season, they could do a number of things positionally. They could use him as their DH. They also could use him in right field and move Mookie Betts to center field or they could have Soto in left, platoon Cody Bellinger and Chris Taylor in center field with Taylor playing the infield occasionally (or trade one of them to the Nationals), and keep Betts in right field.