One week out from the MLB trade deadline and it's anyone's guess as to whether the Nationals actually move Juan Soto before Aug. 2.
If you've seen one headline stating definitively why Washington will trade its 23-year-old superstar, you've seen another stating just the opposite.
One thing is for certain: If the Nationals do decide to trade Soto, the return they get back better be astronomical. Otherwise, what's the point?
And that's exactly what former Nationals GM, er, MLB analyst Jim Bowden is predicting. Not only will the Nats get their asking price, he says, but they may even get more than that. Or, "the biggest haul in #MLB history," as he put it.
Bowden noting the market sizes is an oft-overlooked part of the equation here, should the Nationals decide to move Soto. It's a nuance that 106.7 The Fan's Grant Paulsen also noted last week when reporting why the baseball people inside the organization may have a differing opinion than ownership about what to do with their highly in-demand slugger.
"They would like to trade him now, because then your smaller and medium market teams are gonna get in on this," Paulsen observed on 106.7 The Fan. "Because they can talk their owners into having three swings with Juan Soto to win a World Series. It's unprecedented. You normally trade for a guy like Soto, you get one run, renting him for a few months. You get two runs if you're lucky. See: Trea Turner from Washington to LA last year for a year and a half left. This is two and a half years and three postseasons."
"So a Tampa Bay, or a San Francisco or a Milwaukee, or these teams that would never spend on him to keep him in free agency," he added, "they could still give up the four or five, six prospects — whatever it might take — to bring him in because they have an opportunity to win two titles in the next three years, and that's justified to them. So the baseball people, I believe, would like to trade him now."
Paulsen, it should be noted, was 'not convinced' the Lerners would sign off on a Soto trade, suggesting that they may put the kibosh on any potential deal just as they did with Bryce Harper in 2018, perhaps because of the weight of their own legacy and being known as the owners who traded a future Hall of Famer.
