Unless it is Steve Cohen’s team, every club has payroll limits, short and long term. And even Cohen’s Mets have a finite quantity of prospects, particularly valuable ones.
So when a club decides to pursue a player such as Juan Soto, it must ask: Is this the right time in a contention cycle to give up both the young players and the dollars necessary? Because once invested, it is gone. Timing matters.
And in Soto’s case, he is a free agent after the 2024 season. So everything you are giving up guarantees just 162 regular-season games of control. Therefore, it adds pressure on whichever team obtains Soto — and gives up a haul — to retain him for more than just the 2024 campaign.
Which only gives Scott Boras more leverage next offseason when he almost certainly will take Soto into free agency. Boras also is wise enough to know if, say, the Yankees obtain Soto this winter to play the Cohen game next winter (“Are you really going to let him go to Queens?”) to juice up the price tag.
And, remember, Soto-Boras already rejected a 15-year, $440 million overture from the Nationals. And as one AL executive said, “Everyone knows where Scott built the bar, and it is not going to go lower.”
Perhaps Soto is worth that. He was born four days after the Yankees’ completed their 1998 World Series sweep of the Padres, which — among other items — makes him nearly a year younger than Estevan Florial. Soto’s offensive stats through his age-24 season are historic — a better OPS-plus than Joe DiMaggio and the same homer total as Albert Pujols.
Defensively and on the bases, Soto falters. And I continue to say any team about to make this prospect-plus-money investment must be at peace that the toxic work situation with the 2023 Padres was about the disharmony between GM A.J. Preller and since-departed manager Bob Melvin rather than anything emanating from the clubhouse.
I still believe that unless Hal Steinbrenner is authorizing a spree that also will include, say, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and another well-rounded player or two from Cody Bellinger, Jeimer Candelario and Kevin Kiermaier that I do not trust the current core group enough to make the Soto investment. The prospects traded are not on loan, they are gone for good. The money with this Steinbrenner is finite. And his current core with just Soto added of significance would be a permutation of the 2023 Mets and Padres — another famous name heaped on an unstable foundation.
I just have big concerns about the rebound abilities of Nestor Cortes, Carlos Rodon, Anthony Rizzo, Giancarlo Stanton and DJ LeMahieu, the continuing health of Gerrit Cole and Aaron Judge, and that an organization that has produced so few difference-making position players for nearly three decades is suddenly going to have multitudes at once — beginning with Jasson Dominguez, Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells.
But the Yankees are clearly interested in Soto and are trying to bulk up for 2024. So I am thinking more about the kind of trade that can be fashioned that might allow the Yankees to lower the prospect pain so that if this is just a one-year relationship with Soto it is more tolerable.
The closest parallel, I believe, is the Mookie Betts trade from the Red Sox to the Dodgers. Betts, like Soto, was a star outfielder a year from free agency. Boston was looking to cut from roughly a $235 million projection for the 2020 season to beneath the $208 million luxury-tax threshold. The Red Sox talked seriously to the Padres, but wound up doing a deal with that the Dodgers that was initially scuttled when Boston was concerned about a physical involving Brusdar Graterol (who was coming from the third-party Twins). The deal was reconfigured, and Los Angeles took on half of the $96 million (thus, $48 million) over three years left on David Price’s contract. That allowed the Dodgers to trade lefty-hitting outfielder Alex Verdugo, catcher Connor Wong and infielder Jeter Downs.
The Padres are in need of cutting substantial payroll as well. So in order to mimic the Price is right, what if the Yankees agreed to take on all or most of the $80 million over seven years owed Jake Cronenworth plus the $5.5 million due Matt Carpenter in 2024?
A trade that would look like that of the Dodgers would be lefty-hitting outfielder Spencer Jones, catcher Austin Wells and second basemen Jared Serna. But the Padres, even while cutting payroll, want to try to compete still in 2024 and need pitching. So the Yankees probably have to offer two or three from Cortes, Clarke Schmidt, Drew Thorpe, Chase Hampton, Will Warren, Brito and Randy Vasquez. And extra pieces such as Florial and Kyle Higashioka or Ben Rortvedt might be useful, as the Padres seek inexpensive center field and catching depth.
“I know people will see the name Soto, but the one year of control really limits the return,” an executive who has been involved in a trade with a star one year from free agency said. “Teams are very rational about this now.”
But another executive, while echoing the general rationality in these moments, noted “the scarcity of bats in the market and lots of teams that need bats” to suggest that the Padres will not equal the haul they surrendered for Soto during the 2022 season, but could do well.
If, for example, the Cubs or Giants fail to land, notably, Shohei Ohtani, might they intensify a Soto pursuit? Seattle is desperate for a big bat. There will be multiple suitors.
Could the Yankees’ separator be a willingness to assume money and be a one-stop shop to help ease the Padres’ financial worries. MLB Trade Rumors estimated Soto’s arbitration bill at $32 million. If removing that alone is enough to help the Padres’ combo needs of reducing financial burden and adding at least three starters, a reliever, a backup catcher and a Soto replacement, then San Diego won’t lower his value by including anyone else. But they probably do need to free up more cash.
Either no-trade clauses and/or substantial dollars owed make it unlikely San Diego can move Manny Machado (10 years, $327 million), Fernando Tatis Jr. (11 years, $317 million), Xander Bogaerts (10 years, $250 million) and Yu Darvish (five years, $78 million), though if the Yankees could move Stanton’s four years at $98 million (he would have to waive his no-trade clause to return to his Southern California roots) then …
Joe Musgrove has four years at $80 million left, but he grew up near San Diego a Padres fan, has a no-trade clause, missed the final two months of last season because of a shoulder ailment, and the Padres need to add starters, not remove them.
Robert Suarez (two years at $20 million or three at $28 million if he picks up his 2026 player option) missed half the 2023 season with an elbow injury then received a 10-game suspension for being caught with an illegal sticky substance — hardly a combo that gets you traded. Ha-Seong Kim has just a one-year, $8 million commitment left and is outperforming his pact, so he is not a big money-saver for San Diego.
Cronenworth responded to an extension that begins in 2024 with the worst season of his career. But if the Yankees believe they could get the Cronenworth who was one of just 19 players to register 4.0 Wins Above Replacement (Fangraphs) in both 2021 and 2022, then he actually fits the team as a lefty hitter who can play across the infield, though mainly first and second. That Cronenworth would make it easier for the Yankees to trade Oswald Peraza or Gleyber Torres in this deal or elsewhere.
Could the Yankees regenerate Carpenter’s lefty bat to the regular-season force it was for them in 2022? If not his contract ends after 2024 anyway.
Ultimately, can the Yankees use their money to help with San Diego’s financial issues to a degree to get more favorable access to Soto?