Quick thoughts on the latest Juan Soto rumors

Hark, rumors.

The rumblings about a potential Juan Soto trade are growing louder. Jeff Passan (subs. req’d) says some in the game believe it could happen by the end of the Winter Meetings, and as I said in last week’s mailbag, I think the Yankees are most likely to get him. I really do. That doesn't mean I think it's guaranteed to happen. It's just feels like things are falling into place.

Before we get into that, here are the latest Soto developments from Jon Heyman, Andy Martino, and various people at The Athletic (subs. req’d):

• The two sides have exchanged names but there is an “enormous gap” in talks. At least eight other teams have checked in on Soto.
• San Diego wants Mike King, Drew Thorpe, and as many as 5-6 others, including Jhony Brito and Randy Vásquez. I saw George Lombard Jr.’s name somewhere too.
• The Yankees would rather surrender Clarke Schmidt than King. There’s belief a package built around Schmidt, Thorpe, and secondary pieces could get it done.
• Jasson Domínguez, Everson Pereira, Gleyber Torres, Anthony Volpe, and Austin Wells are not involved in trade conversations.
• Trent Grisham’s name has come up as part of a larger trade. The Padres want to shed his salary and the Yankees could use a lefty hitting center fielder.

It seems they’ve reached the “negotiate through the media” phase of trade talks. The seller doesn’t think the buyer is offering enough, the buyer thinks the seller is asking too much, so they leak things. Happens all the time. One of those reports above says the Padres have talked to the Blue Jays about Soto. Do you think the Yankees leaked that to nudge the Padres, or the Padres leaked it to get the Yankees to react? Exactly.

In a way, making all this public indicates progress. The two sides are talking and motivated, but they’re not quite there yet, so they turn to the media to help move things along. If the Padres felt the Yankees were making a fair offer and the Yankees felt the Padres were being realistic with their demands, the deal would be done already. It does seem the Yankees do have a lot going for them though. Consider:

- Soto will be a free agent next offseason. Right out of the gate, that shrinks to market to teams planning to contend in 2024. There is something to be said for bringing Soto in and spending next season selling him on the organization in advance of free agency, but is a team that believes it is a year or two away really going to do that? History suggests no, most likely not.

- Soto will make $30M+ next year. And only a few teams can afford that. Well, it’s probably more accurate to say only a few teams will choose to afford that, but the point is Soto will have a very large 2024 salary and not every team can make it work financially. The market has already been whittled down to contenders with significant money to spend.

- The Padres (probably) won’t trade him within the NL West. With a player like Soto, you really should take the best offer no matter where it comes from, but all things being equal, sure, the Padres want to steer him away from a division rival. That rules out the Dodgers and Giants, and even the Diamondbacks. Why not add Soto after going to the World Series?

- San Diego seems to want upper level pitching in return. Nick Martinez, Blake Snell, and Michael Wacha are all free agents and the Padres weren’t blessed with much rotation depth to begin with. They badly need arms at a time when quality pitching is hard to get. I have to think MLB-ready or near-MLB-ready pitching will be part of a Soto trade package (go back and look at who they want from the Yankees).

The Yankees thread that needle perfectly. They can contend in 2024, they can afford Soto’s big salary, they’re not in the NL West, and they can give the Padres their pick of MLB (King and Schmidt), Triple-A (Clayton Beeter and Will Warren), and Double-A (Richard Fitts, Chase Hampton, and Thorpe) pitching. How many other teams match up so well?

The Cubs plan to contend and can afford Soto’s salary, but unless they trade tentative rotation member Jordan Wicks or tippy top prospect Cade Horton, they don’t have the pitching. The Red Sox have the money and motivation, but not the pitching. The Mets don’t have the pitching and I’m not sure new baseball operations head David Stearns is ready to go all-in on 2024 anyway.

There is no indication the Orioles will make that level of financial commitment even though they have reached the point in the competitive cycle where adding one year of Soto makes a world of sense. The Rays are expected to subtract payroll, not add a player with Soto’s projected salary. The Mariners should be in, but they also seem to stop short of doing anything that could potentially put them over the top. They seem happy competing for the third Wild Card spot.

The Astros or Blue Jays? Yeah, I could see it, though their pitching reserves aren’t as deep as the Yankees’ (would the Padres want Alek Manoah?). The Rangers are a threat. They have a few young arms to offer and could plop Soto in at DH. They are facing uncertainty with Bally Sports though, and GM Chris Young told Evan Grant they won’t spend as aggressively in recent years.

You can never rule out a Mystery Team (Phillies?) and the great x-factor is how the Padres feel about the players they’re offered. Prospect rankings are irrelevant. All that matters is San Diego’s evaluation of those players. They might love King and not think highly of Schmidt, or consider Thorpe a future ace and Warren and Hampton back-end starters. We just don’t know.

What we do know is the Padres are likely to cut payroll, both to get back into compliance with MLB’s debt service guidelines and put themselves on more solid ground after being dropped by Bally Sports in May. MLB took over Padres broadcasts in the interim, but that’s a band-aid, not a long-term solution. San Diego’s television situation is a major question moving forward.

The Padres are expected to reduce payroll into the $200M range and Cot’s estimates their 2024 payroll commitments at $189.8M, including arbitration projections. Longtime Padres reporter Dennis Lin (subs. req’d) says, with maybe only $10M to spend, the Padres need (these are Lin’s words and bullet points):

• At least three starting pitchers
• At least two relievers
• A catcher to split time with Luis Campusano
• An outfielder, with Trent Grisham on the trade block

That’s a lot. There’s no way to adequately address all those needs with only $10M or so unless you trade your best prospects for pre-arbitration-eligible players, and hey, maybe the Padres will do that. Ethan Salas and Jackson Merrill are two of the 10 best prospects in the game. Put them on the table and San Diego would be able to put a real dent in their pitching needs.

Realistically though, that’s unlikely to happen, and San Diego’s other big money players (Xander Bogaerts, Yu Darvish, Manny Machado, Joe Musgrove, Fernando Tatis Jr.) all have full no-trade clauses. Trading Soto is the best and most straightforward way to shed payroll and add multiple cheap young players to the organization. A tough pill to swallow, no doubt, but sensible.

And the thing is, if the Padres are going to trade Soto, they kinda have to do it soon, right? They can’t (or shouldn’t, anyway) drag this into January because they have so many other needs to address, and they need to free up Soto’s money to address them. Not to mention see what they get in return for Soto so they know exactly what holes they’ve filled and what problems they still have to solve.

To some extent, that’s good for the Yankees. Ultimately, the Padres have Soto and they’ll dictate the pace, but if there’s pressure to get a deal done soon so they can get on with the rest of their offseason, the Yankees can squeeze them a bit. The market for Soto is limited, allowing the Yankees to more easily wait out the Padres than the Padres can wait out the Yankees.

Of course, the Yankees have to get on with their offseason too. They can’t wait around forever and their needs don’t stop at Soto. But Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s posting window doesn’t close for another five weeks, Jung-Hoo Lee hasn’t even been posted yet, and is Scott Boras really going to say yes to an offer for Cody Bellinger until knowing for sure the Yankees are out? I doubt it.

The Yankees sorely need a player like Soto, both on the field and to re-energize the fan base, and I think ownership and the front office know that. They also match up well with the Padres given their competitive window, financial resources, and tradeable pitching. The Yankees have time on their side too, at least in the sense that the Padres have a greater need to act quickly.

Also, the trade package for a rental star player is almost never as large as everyone expects. When a star hits the market, the first reaction is to say he’ll command a monster package that includes several young big leaguers and top prospects, then …

… he gets traded for an MLB roster player, a top five team prospect, and a lottery ticket or two. It happened with Mookie Betts, Paul Goldschmidt, Francisco Lindor, and others. The trade return usually underwhelms, and in Soto’s case, it’s one very expensive season of a player on a team that kinda needs to act fast. Conditions are ripe for a favorable trade for the Yankees.

That isn’t to say the Padres will give Soto away. Just that they can only expect so much in return. We’ve barely seen rumblings about Domínguez or Volpe being involved because it’s so very unlikely to happen. Not because the Yankees won’t trade them, but because they won’t have to trade them. Get down to brass tacks, and only so many teams are in the mix and the offers will only be so large given the money involved.

Teams obsess over money and years of control, and Soto is owed a lot of money for only one year of control. It’s still Juan Soto and you’ll have to give up players you don’t want to trade to get him, but mortgaging the farm? Nah. History says it won’t be necessary for a rental. Things are beginning to pick up and the stars are aligned for the Yankees to come out ahead for Soto.

“That’d be pretty special,” Aaron Judge told Greg Joyce (subs. req’d) at the 2022 All-Star Game, before Soto was traded to the Padres, when asked about the Yankees possibly adding him. “He’s a generational talent, that’s for sure. Great left-handed bat that hits for average, hits for power, walks. He’s a competitor. He’s played in big games. That’d be pretty cool.”