Soto’s situation and the Nationals

These past two weeks have been tumultuous (to say the least) for the saga of Juan Soto and the Washington Nationals. Prior to the All-Star break, a report surfaced that the team had offered the player $440 million for 15 years and he had turned down the offer.

After that, a second report indicated that the Nationals would explore the possibility of trading the 23-year-old Dominican, which has launched an additional string of reports about interested teams and the type of offers that would have to be made for a player at his level.

Throughout the All-Star break, Soto was questioned about the situation, about staying with the team, about the contract and about the fact that the offer was leaked to the media and the rejection of the offer. Without hesitation, Soto and his agent, Scott Boras, made clear their annoyance that the talks were made public, despite the fact that the player has repeatedly tried to keep them private.

In the midst of all that, Soto won the Home Run Derby and was greeted by Dodger fans amid shouts of “Future Dodger” when he came in to play in the outfield during the All-Star Game.

With all of these elements, it is impossible to overlook that, if this trend continues, Soto’s breakup with the Nationals will be a complete catastrophe of greater proportions than the departure of Mookie Betts from the Boston Red Sox and even the departure from the Texas Rangers of another Boras standout, Alex Rodriguez.

The first reason to think this is that the Nationals have put Soto in a compromising situation in front of the press and in front of the team’s fans. Soto himself indicated during All-Star Game interviews that having everything leaked about the negotiations made him work “uncomfortable.”

Second, from the perspective of Soto and his agent, trust in the team has been damaged. Leaking information about negotiations of this nature to the media is something that happens only if one party wants it to. The outfielder and Boras have reacted negatively to the situation, which points to the fact that in the upcoming negotiations (if there are any), things will not be so comfortable for the Nationals.

In addition, Boras accused the team that, after the rejection of the $440 million offer, it did not arrange a flight for Soto to leave Atlanta for Los Angeles to participate in the All-Star Game activities. The agent said Soto will also take that into account in the future.

Add to all of this what happened with the most recent star to emerge from within the team who left because he couldn’t come to terms with the Nationals and who, to top it off, is also a Scott Boras client, Bryce Harper.

Harper decided to leave the Nationals after the team failed to make an offer that matched what the player and his agent were looking for, so he decided to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies for 13 years and $330 million. We could also take a cue from Max Scherzer, another Boras client, who decided to leave the team for a higher dollar-per-year offer with the New York Mets.

This pattern of negotiations points to Boras and the Nationals not being on the best possible terms and that will directly affect how negotiations with Soto play out.

Finally, there is the element of competition. Soto has repeatedly made it clear that he wants to be on a team that competes year in and year out. The Nationals won the World Series in 2019, but have been anything but competitive since then and prior to that win, they also didn’t make waves within a division that gets more competitive every year.

The Nationals have put themselves between a rock and a hard place with this whole Soto situation and the reality is leaning more and more every day towards the possibility that the team may have to trade the stellar Dominican ballplayer.