Most significant stories of 2022: Soto traded to San Diego

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2022. We continue the series today with the franchise-altering trade of Juan Soto to the Padres …

The notion of dealing Juan Soto at the Aug. 2 trade deadline, while occasionally raised by outside forces looking to stir things up, was never taken seriously by anyone who closely followed the Nationals as late in the process as July 15.

Then came the morning of July 16, and with it a bombshell report from The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. The headline said it all: “Juan Soto rejects $440 million offer; Nationals will entertain trade proposals.”

Thus was Soto’s world turned upside down for the next 17 days. The star slugger couldn’t go anywhere without being inundated with questions about his future. Did he really turn down that much money? How much would the Nats have to offer to get him to stay? Did he want to be traded? If so, where did he want to play? And if he was traded, would he then sign an extension with that club?

It made for an interminable 2 1/2 weeks, with the All-Star break smack in the thick of it all. And by the time the Aug. 2 trade deadline arrived, all Soto or anyone else really wanted was some resolution to the matter, whatever the outcome.

The outcome, of course, was the outcome that seemed unthinkable only 17 days earlier. Soto – along with Josh Bell – was traded to the Padres for six players, five of them highly touted prospects, in a franchise-altering deal that confirmed San Diego’s all-in goal of getting its first World Series win and Washington’s full-blown concession it was no longer in a position to try to win another title anytime soon.

“I’m here to make this team the best that it can be, and this was a prudent baseball move,” general manager Mike Rizzo said that fateful Tuesday afternoon, showing some rare public emotion as he announced the deal while wearing his 2019 championship ring. “It was a difficult move. It’s a difficult day.”

It will be years until the world knows if it was the right move. Only two of the six players who came to D.C. have appeared in a game for the Nationals so far, and one of them (Luke Voit) was cut loose this winter. C.J. Abrams will be their everyday shortstop in 2023, and MacKenzie Gore should be in their Opening Day rotation, but Robert Hassell III, James Wood and Jarlin Susana have a long way to go before making their major league debuts.

The Nats, though, believe they are better positioned for long-term success now than they were before making the trade. They were well on their way to a 100-loss season with Soto on the roster, they weren’t likely to win a whole lot more with him in 2023 and it would’ve been a gamble to let him enter his walk year in 2024 with no extension in place, even if the team was inching closer toward contention.

In Rizzo’s preferred world, Soto would’ve accepted the record-shattering, 15-year, $440 million offer extended to him earlier in the summer and would’ve been a National for life. But Soto, at the advice of agent Scott Boras, turned it down, believing he would command even more as a free agent who could negotiate with all 30 clubs prior to the 2025 season.

And once that happened, Rizzo felt he had no choice but to solicit trade offers for one of the best hitters in baseball, no matter the fact he was only 23 and was until team control another 2 1/2 seasons.

“We did feel that we were not going to be able to extend him,” Rizzo said during that Aug. 2 news conference. “And we felt that, at this time, with 2 1/2 years remaining, three playoff runs available of Juan Soto, he would never be of more value than he is today.”

With competition from the Cardinals, the Dodgers and perhaps one or two other interested parties, the Padres ultimately came through with an offer Rizzo believed he couldn’t refuse. It was arguably the largest prospect haul in trade history, and it helped propel the Nationals’ farm system from one of the worst in baseball to one that’s now in the middle of the pack, according to those who compile these rankings for a living.

But it’s worth remembering why the Nats were in this position in the first place. After a sustained run of success drafting future stars including Ryan Zimmerman, Jordan Zimmermann, Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon from 2005-11, they have not drafted a single player who has gone on to produce more than 1.9 bWAR for them in the decade since. No other franchise falls into that same category during that same time frame.

Had the Nationals simply managed to draft and develop a few more quality big leaguers since 2012, they might well have sustained a level of success that would’ve allowed them to at least make a run at another title with Soto on their roster, and perhaps even convinced him to stay.

It’s too late for any of that to change now, though. The organization made its decision. Soto helped the Padres reach the National League Championship Series and now has two more years to try to help them win the World Series. The Nats restocked their barren farm system the only way they could after a decade of missteps.

Maybe they’ll end up in a better place in the end. If some combination of Abrams, Gore, Hassell, Wood and Susana play key roles on playoff contenders in 2025, 2026 and 2027, it may have been worth it.

But that’s still a tough pill to swallow in 2022, a year that saw the Nationals willingly trade away the best hitter in team history.