The Nationals Got A Historic Haul For Juan Soto, But It May Not Be Enough

Juan Soto could retire right now and the Nationals still wouldn’t have gotten enough for him at the trade deadline in 2022, simply because it’s impossible to ever get enough for a potential all-time franchise player and inner circle Hall of Famer.

Soto, who presumably will not retire right now and will not turn 27 until October, already has 39.0 WAR, per Baseball-Reference, which already ranks 28th all-time amongst position players through their age-26 seasons. If he’d accumulated all of that in a Nationals uniform, he’d already rank seventh in Expos/Nationals history, fewer than three full seasons behind Gary Carter (55.8 WAR). As is, the 21.4 WAR he accumulated in four-plus seasons with the club ranks 14th.

But the Nationals did as well as any team could do upon deciding to trade a generational superstar. Forty percent of Washington’s first pitch lineup in Tuesday’s 5-4, 10-inning loss to the Mets — pitcher MacKenzie Gore, shortstop CJ Abrams, left fielder James Wood and centerfielder Robert Hassell III — was acquired from the Padres, along with veteran infielder Luke Voit and minor league pitcher Jarlin Susana, in exchange for Soto and Josh Bell on Aug. 2, 2022.

“I love it, I really do,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said Tuesday night. “These guys, it’s good to see them up here, It’s good to see them playing well, They’re the core of our future and they’re learning everyday and they’re really starting to get it.”

Thirteen of the top 24 active leaders in WAR among position players have been traded at least once in their prime (Starling Marte has been dealt three times). Per WAR, the players the Nationals received for Soto already ranks as the third-most productive return behind the package Cleveland got from the Mets in 2021 in exchange for Francisco Lindor and the players the Pirates received from the Giants in exchange for Andrew McCutchen in 2018.

While Hassell, who played in his 17th big league game Tuesday night, has yet to register any WAR, Gore, Wood and Abrams have combined for 17.9 WAR since the trade — including 7.2 WAR this season, when they rank first, second and third on the Nationals in the category.

Even without major contributions from Hassell or Susana, the latter of whom has yet to advance past Double-A, the Abrams-Gore-Wood trio is likely to surge past the Cleveland and Pirates returns in WAR this season.

Andres Gimenez and Amed Rosario combined for 23.1 WAR with the Guardians, but both have been traded and the final two players Cleveland acquired, outfielder Isaiah Greene and pitcher Josh Wolf, have yet to reach the majors. Kyle Crick and Bryan Reynolds have accounted for 20.3 WAR with the Pirates, who have the fifth-worst record in the majors since the McCutchen trade.

(In case you want to know why the Marlins are the Marlins and the Rockies are the Rockies, they got a total of 2.3 and 2.0 WAR, respectively, in return for Giancarlo Stanton and Nolan Arenado)

Yet Tuesday night also served as a cautionary tale for the Nationals — one filled with promise but also no guarantee they can mount a return to serious title contention without either locking up their core or augmenting it with stars from outside the organization.

Soto, who as you may know by now signed a $765 million deal with the Mets in December, homered in the fourth, but Gore threw six solid innings while lowering his ERA to 2.88 and increasing his major league-leading strikeout total to 114. He exited in line for the win thanks largely to Abrams, who had three extra-base hits — a homer and two doubles — as he became the first shortstop to deliver three extra-base hits in multiple games this season.

Wood was 1-for-4 with a walk, but two of his outs were productive grounders to first base with Abrams on second. Hassell finished 0-for-4 and just missed making a sliding, inning-ending catch of Soto’s RBI double in the eighth. Pete Alonso tied the score with a run-scoring single two pitches later off Nationals closer Kyle Finnegan. Edwin Diaz and Reed Garrett then set down six straight batters before Jeff McNeil delivered the walk-off hit.

The victory was the latest reminder the Mets are willing to acquire high-end talent by any method under Steve Cohen — and that the Nationals who signed Scott Boras clients Patrick Corbin, Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg to nine-figure deals have been in hibernation for more than half a decade.

The Nationals allowed Bryce Harper (also a Boras client) and Anthony Rendon (guess what, also a Boras client) to exit as free agents following the 2018 and 2019 seasons, though Harper’s departure ensured the daily mood of the franchise would no longer be measured by his mercurial nature and letting Rendon walk might go down as the greatest inaction in baseball history.

But the trades of Scherzer, Soto and Trea Turner (yup, a Boras client) in 2021 and 2022 are the ones that underline just how much more the Nationals have to do even after securing the best possible return in exchange for a superstar. Care to take one guess as to who represents Gore and Wood as well as 2023 first-round pick Dylan Crews?