Barry asks the question and despite early season issues, Soto is still Soto.
Now the obvious answer is "Yes you pursue him, he makes your team better and what are you doing if not trying to have the best team" but baseball owners don't think that way, considering money spent toward getting better but not necessarily challenging for a title a waste.
So the question is - what will it take for the Nats to challenge for a title then? We can look to the past and see. I looked at 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2017 and it seems like to start you need 6 decent bats (some 120+ OPS+ some 110+) and 4 decent pitchers (2 130+ ERA+, 1 120+, 1 110+) and a deep pen. The better hitters you may have, the fewer good hitters you need. You might be able to get away with say 4 if one is a legit star like 150+. Same with relievers - you don't have to be as deep if you have a few guys you can rely on every time. Starters have a bit less leeway. You can probably have only 3 above average starters but they kind of have to be dominant.
Where do the Nats stand right now?
Hitting :
Well let's assume Soto is supposed to be the last piece and a legit star. That means the Nats can get away with fewer bats. Think 2016. Murphy was a near MVP, Turner was great but part time, Bryce, Ramos, and Rendon were all ok and Werth was around average.
Currently the Nats have... maybe an ok in Lane Thomas. They do have guys that technically right this minute fit the other spots but no one thinks Riley Adams is going to be great or that Vargas and Meneses can definitely be ok in 2 years. None of this is the plan, or even an outside hope. The remainder of the team isn't even average. So there is a lot of work to be done.
The most likely planned scenario would be Wood or another youngster fills the Turner role and three of Garcia, Abrams, Ruiz, ? become the ok hitters. That's a lot that needs to go right. They could supplement with a FA but we'll have to see what else is needed before we go down that route.
Starting Pitching :
Starting with what they have now the Nats MIGHT have a dominant pitcher between Gray, who is getting the results but pitching only ok and Gore who is pitching pretty well but not quite showing how good he is pitching. Neither right now looks like the complete ace package. We'll be generous and say one ends up very good and one good. Like a 150+ and a 130+. That means the Nats need like a 140+ and a 120+ as well. Or another 150+ Or... well you get the point. They need another pitcher and it's not going to be Corbin or Williams or Irvin. Cavalli, Henry, and maybe their draft pick could all blossom but by 2025 it isn't likely that the Nats get a dominant rookie out of the gate or two guys ready to be competitive definitely.
Relief Pitching :
Relief is funny in that you can find great players from anywhere for a season and then they go away so it's hard to predict what you'll see. But the general sense looking at the Nats relief core as it stands today is that there are no dominant arms and no depth. I haven't heard much about dominant arms in the minors just waiting for their chance.
In review it seems like the Nats will need a good bat, a good starter, and some relievers. Along with signing Soto... that's a lot for the Nats to bring in in FA and unlikely to happen. So they need something to happen beyond the good fortune noted above. Oh you don't think it's good fortune to say Wood becomes Turner and you don't suffer injury setbacks anywhere that makes what you project worse? You simple child.
They need something that would seem unexpected now. They need that pitching group to produce that ROY starter or 2-3 ok guys immediately. They need Abrams/Garcia/Ruiz/? to produce two good hitters. They need to find a bunch of dominant reliever arms in the minors. They need to have something happen that mitigates the need to spend money on a bat and a starter and relievers because somewhere the money has to go to Soto.
And yes, you can work out a way it makes sense without the luck. But chances are you'll need to spend the money somewhere, and even if you don't it would be wise to sign more extensions for these young guys which will push up that base payroll. Maybe you do get lucky or maybe you are ok trying to win in a tight window, or maybe the new owners will be Cohen-esque. But the most likely scenario is the Nats need something special to happen in order to make signing Soto worth it for a Nats team heading into 2025.
And that's if Soto is available and the Nats outbid other teams.
Phew - being good is hard!
11 comments:
The thing to remember about signing Soto when he reaches free agency after next season is that he will have just turned 26 (October 2024). It feels like he's been around forever, but he's still young - there are only three players on the Nats' current 40 man roster that are younger than Soto: CJ Abrams; Luis Garcia; and Israel Pineda. And that's on a team that has the youngest average batter age in MLB.
That means two things: (1) a ten year contract would cover Soto's age 27-36 seasons; and therefore (2) he should still be in his prime for the first 3-4 seasons. And what THAT means is that you don't base the decision to sign him solely the team's prospects for the 2025 season. You base that on how the organization projects into those first few seasons - so, for example, if this year's #1 pick and a couple of other prospects are on the threshold but not there yet, you can project to having him as an impact bat when you need it.
That's the approach from the Nats' perspective, of course. Whether they would be willing to win a bidding war for Soto's services is a much dicier proposition.
It is too early for Soto to be the difference that gets the Nats over the top.
The 2019 WS winners were built around the home grown talent of Zimmerman, Strasberg, Harper (who left before the party) and later Rendon. Harper and Strasberg were slated to be "generational talents" -- like Soto. Harper, yes, SS no, though he did burn bright on occasion. Trea Turner (trade) and Robles came along later.
Starters, excepting Strasberg, were outsourced. Corbin, Anibel and Max. Most of the rest of the pieces came through FA signings and trades.
If any single piece could be compared to signing Soto, it was Max Scherzer -- and Harper had it right, if a bit early, when he said "Where's my ring".
Soto seems a bit more grounded than Harper. Given the way the Padres are trending, maybe he could be convinced to be the center pole of a resurgent Nats team. It'd be nice. But it'd take some starting pitching for sure and maybe one more serious bat. I don't see the Lerners ponying up.
Seems like an even mix of homegrown talent, trades, and FA signings.
Below is a the top players for each Nats team from 2012-2019:
2012: ZNN/Bryce/Zimm (homegrown), Gio (trade), LaRoche (FA)
2013: ZNN/Bryce/Zimm/Desmond (homegrown), Werth (FA)
2014: ZNN/Rendon (homegrown), Roark/Span (trade), Werth
2015: ZNN/Bryce/Desmond (homegrown), Gio (trade), Max (FA)
2016: Rendon/Stras (homegrown), Roark (trade), Max/Murphy (FA)
2017: Rendon/Stras/Bryce (homegrown), Gio (trade), Max (FA)
2018: Rendon/Soto (homegrown), Turner/Roark (trade), Max (FA)
2019: Rendon/Stras/Soto (homegrown), Max/Corbin (FA)
Btw: while Rizzo is often a target of poor drafting/player development (fair/unfair). Take a look at these FA and trades he maneuvered. As Harper stated in another blog posting: another GM can mayyyybe do better that Rizzo, but you can certainly do a heck of a lot worse. Strasburg deal post WS MVP not withstanding, he's been very successful in the trade and FA market. If he's still here in 2025 when we "make a run" again, I'm confident in the product on the field.
Also, I'd love for Soto to come back. Padres and Preller are suckers and will lose that trade with the Nats. Not saying the Nats win the trade either, but Preller has only been raided repeatedly. Machado is probably the only signing/trade he's pulled off successfully and that one might be an overpay.
The article makes valid points, but it may undercut the chances the Nationals will get more value out of their current farm system. That would make "buy two high end hitters and two high end pitchers in free agency" less necessary.
For example, the "hitter" section doesn't mention RH3, Green or House as possible future Nationals pieces. They won't ALL make it, but none of them?
And the Nats drafting #2 in 2023 means they will get either Skenes (SP) or Crews/Langford (OF). All highly rated "high floor" candidates (with usual caveats about injuries).
If Soto was willing to play 1B, a team with Wood-RH3-(Robles/Thomas/Green/FA) in the OF and House-CJ-LG-Soto in the IF would be potentially amusing. A Skenes-FA-Gore-Gray-Cavalli rotation (with Henry/Susana as longshot reserves) would be potentially workable.
Yep, I'm not assuming the Nats can win a bidding war for Soto that includes the LAD, NYY, Steve Cohen etc. It would be FUNNY, granted, but unlikely.
But I'm not ruling it out either. And if some of RH3/Green/House/Skenes-Crews make it, a defensible case could be made for Soto at 1B in the 2025+ Nationals.
I can see the optimism on the pitching side of things.
Each of our top 5 2025 in-house starters projects as at least an SP 3/4. If there are no more injury set backs, a baseline rotation of Gore, Gray, Cavalli, Henry, and Rutledge would be very strong. Of course, "no future injury setbacks" is pretty unlikely for 5 young pitchers, especially since three of them significant injury histories, but those guys are all very highly regarded pitching talents who, if healthy, are probably good enough to succeed in the majors. (Also, except for Cavalli, the most recent news on each is encouraging. And so many pitchers come back from TJ and are fine, it's just hard for me to really discount a young pitcher going through it beyond the lost year. I may be naive, but I'm optimistic about each of those five pitchers.)
Where I think Harper has a really strong point is on the hitting side. Even with one prospect really blowing up (ie Wood becoming Turner), you do the same exercise with median-ish development projections and we're still just an average hitting team. Juan Soto would go a long way to fix that, but I think Harper is right that we'd want another very good bat.
This team can totally afford Soto and another solid FA bat in 2025-26. Strasburg and Corbin will be off the books and new ownership will presumably be in place.
The rebuild looked pretty dire last year, feels slightly ahead of schedule this year. Gray’s pitching better than I expected and seems like the prospects they got from the Padres are looking more like they’re supposed to than they did the tail end of last season.
Not going to lie, the idea of Soto coming back is very enticing. Wherever he signs for 2025 will be getting him at 26 years old. How a 15yr/$405M ($27M AAV). That would take him through his age 40 season. Makes me think of Bryce’s deal in Philly and how it’s a bargain for them. Sure, it’s $330M but stretched out over 13 years. I feel that Bryce is the only fair comp to Soto once he becomes a FA. Would be interesting to see how that plays out. Soto is getting paid $23M by the Padres to avoid arbitration. As of today, the $405M total deal would be safely the second highest in MLB history, behind Trout (12/$426.5M). Soto doesn’t seem like the kind of guy that would scoff at that.
While I'd love to have Soto back, I'd prefer to spend on multiple players. Rather than spending $30M+/year on a single player, why not grab a $20M and a $10M? Contracts work out to roughly $4M/WAR, so you have a 5WAR and 2.5WAR player there. That gets you a Chris Bassitt and Rafael Devers based on last year's numbers. Obviously not a perfect comparison since the distribution of $/WAR is skewed by high AAV contracts, but the idea is that I'd prefer to spread the wealth given the expected construction of the lineup.
Granted, the Nats payroll should be pretty damn cheap by then, so I'd prefer the owners go after all of the above, but I know that's unrealistic
@CP The time to invest in FA is when the team is good, trending toward better than good. If that moment comes while Strasburg/Corbin are still on payroll, I believe the money will be spent. First, however, we need Lerner's to recommit or a new owner. Second, we are too early to be good. It might well take another 2 to 3 years, although we all hope the moment comes in time to go for Soto.
While we're on the topic of Soto... similar to Bryce at the time of his free agency it was the "promise" of what he could become given his age, rather than what he has done. The haters say that Soto unimpressive at current. Soto fans point out that he's only 24.
If I'm a GM, what is the benefit of having a 19 y/o star on your MLB roster? He's so young, that he'll hit free agency before he hits his prime. This means that the Nats theoretically lost out on Bryce for his prime years and likely the same for Soto. And if you want to keep these guys its going to cost you a fortune because of the promise of a yet to be approached prime years. Simply put, these types of players would cost a lot less as a 30 y/o first time FA vs a 24 year old.
My question is this: is it better to have a phenom from age 19-25? Or age 24-30? Everyone always makes a big deal about a player being "so good, and so young." I don't see that as a benefit. I see that as growing pains... and an expensive star down the road that you want to keep but can't afford. I think it's a difference of drafting high school kids vs proven collegiate pitchers/hitters. I think the success rate of the NCAA draft pick succeeding at the MLB level is much higher than out of high school.
@Mike. You are on to something with the Soto to 1st base idea. Of the top 30 Nationals Prospects (according to MLB): 6 of the top 10 are outfielders; none of the top 30 play 1st base. Not crazy that those 6 (includes Hassell, Wood, and Green) plus 4 (Robles, Call, Garrett, and Lane Thomas).....can produce 4 outfielders, of whom at least 3 are above average.
I think this works: Soto plus one mid-level innings eating veteran pitcher (to go with a very young staff) and a hit-only FA DH (Bell is available after 2024). Not an impossible haul to create a serious team in 2025.
A lot has to go right (including signing Soto)--but optimism can be justified. It is not drinking the Kool-Aid to be cautiously optimistic. The first step--so far, so good--is a team that is 10-15 games better than last year and showing promise.
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