By now, everyone is aware that Washington Nationals’ slugger Juan Soto will likely be traded before the August 2nd trade deadline. His agent, who quite enjoys seeing his name in lights, turned down a 15-year, $440 million offer from the Nats.
Washington will be looking for a boatload of prospects in exchange for the 23-year-old (he won’t turn 24 until after this season) slugger, and so the Cleveland Guardians, who may have the deepest farm system in the game were linked to Soto in some articles.
Now, let’s start by saying we understand the likelihood of Cleveland dealing for Soto is extremely slim. That’s not how this organization has done business over the years. Heck, Jose Ramirez left a lot of cash on the table to remain in town for hopefully, the rest of his career.
However, should the Guardians be interested, especially with the supposed influx of cash coming into the team from new minority owner David Blitzer?
If ever any team would make a gigantic financial commitment to a young player, it would seem to be Juan Soto, who again will start next season at age 24.
Soto led the National League last season in on base percentage at .465, and has already belted 118 home runs in his five years in the big leagues.
And he’s 23-years-old. The prime seasons for a typical major league baseball player are age 27 to 29, meaning Soto should still be getting better over the next few seasons. He was a seven win player last season.
If there is anyone a team like the Guardians would be willing to deal top prospects from a loaded farm system, it would be someone like Soto, and it’s not like Cleveland would have to deal every one of their current top ten either.
We talk ourselves into thinking that every minor player who puts up big numbers is going to wind up playing their way into Cooperstown. That’s simply not the case.
Here were Cleveland’s top prospects five years ago (2017):
- Francisco Mejia
- Bradley Zimmer
- Triston McKenzie
- Brady Aiken
- Bobby Bradley
- Yu Chang
- Will Benson
- Nolan Jones
- Erik Gonzalez
- Greg Allen
Granted, in 2017, the Cleveland farm system was not nearly as good and deep as it is now. Certainly, McKenzie has paid off, and hopefully Jones will too. And Mejia was used to get Brad Hand.
You have to figure Washington would want George Valera in a deal for Soto, so if you packaged him with say, Gabriel Arias and Logan Allen in the trade, you still have a very good prospect pool to work with.
Everybody loves Valera, and with good reason. At 21, he’s hitting .272 with 13 homers (857 OPS) at AA Akron, in a pitchers’ league. But will he ever be as good as Soto?
The equalizer is you would get six years of service from Valera, while Soto has only 2-1/2 years before he is eligible for free agency and with his agent being who he is, he’s going to take that route.
We have two points here. First, not all prospects, no matter how highly we think of them turn out to be superstars.
Second, if you can move prospects, even highly regarded ones, for a young, proven superstar, it should be considered. Let’s say Soto winds up being as good as Mike Trout. What would you give up for the last five or six years Trout put together. (Don’t consider the Angels’ record, that’s not Trout’s fault).
Cleveland Sports Perspective 