Some random thoughts today on the Juan Soto deal.
15 years, $765million.
Just putting that out there. $51M/year AAV. If a WAR on the FA market is worth $9M (that’s the going rate from a few years back, i’ll bet its more now), then Soto will have to put up about 80 WAR in the next 15 years to “earn” this contract. Or maybe you can’t think about this contract in those terms, because he’ll sell a million jerseys in the next decade, and he’ll be the cornerstone of a franchise that should be able to buy its way to the playoffs each year. Or, perhaps in about 12 years time when Soto has around 700 career homers … the media blitz alone will be worth the money (he just finished his age 25 season and already has 200 homers, and he averages 35/year … do some quick math and factor in that he’s not even in peak slugging years yet and look out).
Honestly, i’m surprised he went with the Mets. He was such a perfect fit in the Bronx. Right attitude, perfect field, all the history, the pipeline of prospects in the DR, etc. But you don’t hire Scott Boras to take the second best offer (reportedly 16yrs, $760M).
I know we’ve made comments about how the Nats 2025 payroll could have absorbed all these contracts and still have room to spare. I think i’m more irritated they let a core of players go that could have carried the team into the next rebuild; Turner ($27M/year), Harper ($26M/year), Schwarber ($20M/year), basically the Phillies 1-2-3 hitters, all Ex nats. But, you take the good with the bad. We gambled on Strasburg and lost, but cut bait on Rendon and won. Nobody has a crystal ball. Was letting Harper go the right move? We offered Soto $440m, he said no, so we traded him for a cache of players that are (or are projecting to be) crucial to us being relevant again (MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III, C.J. Abrams, James Wood, Jarlin Susana). Was that a good trade? Absolutely. Should this team have committed $51M/year to Soto? Hard to say, given the fact that we were competing against two teams that print money (NYY and LAD) and another team owned by a profligate hedge fund billionaire who could give a sh*t about the luxury Tax.
Draft lottery tomorrow; we project to pick 4th, could move up, will pick no worse than 10th I believe. There’s some decent names in the top 10 projecting already; once we know where we’re picking i’ll throw up a 2025 draft proffer to show what’s likely to be in the mix at our slot.
The secret to success to me is locking down players as early as possible. Unfortunately, the Nats got burned by doing this to arguably the worst young player on the team (Ruiz), but the damage is basically inconsequential. A $6m/year commitment is peanuts, and should have no impact on a serious team’s spending/planning.
I don’t expect the Nats to spend with the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets of the league, but I do expect them to have a payroll in the top half of the league, which is arguably below what they should spend, given the Lerner family is one of the richest ownership groups in MLB and DC is one of the largest/wealthiest markets in the league. the 15th highest payroll is currently the Cardinals at $147m (almost double our current payroll at $78m). All that to say, if we’re not going to spend insane rates on free agents, we need to make sure our core is locked down for many years after their 6 years of team control ends.
The Braves perfected this approach, and signed their young stars to embarrassingly team-friendly deals. Well, if we’d blown Harper and Soto’s expected salary demands at the time out of the water, well, they might looks pretty embarrassingly team-friendly today. There was a lot of buzz that offering Soto $500m would get the deal done at the time, which now looks like an absurd bargain. Harper’s short-lived MLB record deal of $330m looks like a bargain today, generating 24 WAR through the first 6 seasons.
As free agent demands increase every year, the earlier you lock down talent the better. If we’re going to consistently get priced out of the free agency market, we must be taking risks on locking Wood, Crews, Irvin, Herz, Parker and Young down to long term deals. I don’t see any other path in which this team will ever manage to be a playoff team if we’re going to get consistently outspent by our other 3 divisional rivals.
Even then, I really struggle to see how our aforementioned core alone is going to bring another 20-30 wins required to make the playoffs. I hope Rizzo has a plan, because I don’t see it.
Will
10 Dec 24 at 11:57 am
The flaw in the “the Nats shoulda held onto Soto!1!” argument is that SOTO WAS DETERMINED TO GO TO FREE AGENCY. If that wasn’t clear at the time, it is certainly clear in hindsight. And you can’t blame Boras for that; Soto knew Boras’s M.O. when he hired him. When both the Nats and the Yankees (and the Padres?) approached him about an extension he never even engaged. The Nats (and Yankees) could not compel Soto to extend. It was a gamble for Soto, but MAN did it ever pay off.
And yes, the Nats could have afforded $51M/year for Soto. The flaw there is the assumption that had the Nats made such and offer that Cohen would not simply have raised again. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Yankees at some point realized that Cohen was not going to be outbid and simply went a couple more rounds of offers before tapping out simply to drive up Cohen’s costs. Not that Cohen seems to care.
As for engaging in the process, there were reports that Rizzo made it clear to Boras that he wanted to be kept in the loop. Had there been a chance to stop in late (the way the Nats did with Corbin), the Nats could have done it. But the way it worked out that wasn’t an option.
John C.
10 Dec 24 at 12:13 pm
Locking down young players only works if the players are willing to sign. And nearly all the Nats’ former young core players where Boras clients, who were not going to extend. Unlike many in the Natosphere, I’m not a Boras hater. The Nats wouldn’t have a championship without him, and in fact Rizzo and Ted Lerner managed that relationship for about all it was worth. But when you take on Boras clients, it’s a Cinderella story — midnight is coming. Thankfully, the Nats were able to squeeze out a championship before the clock struck 12.
And the Nats absolutely did right, and struck gold, by trading Soto at peak value. If it were me, I would have offered him $500M before doing so, but it still seems unlikely that he would have extended.
I do think Todd is right in questioning whether the Mets will get full “value” out of Soto, however value may be defined. Soto is never going to have any positive defensive value, so it’s all at the plate. He’s only topped 8 fWAR once, and only hit more than 40 homers once, both in the very friendly confines (for LH hitters) of Yankee Stadium. So . . . let’s say he averages 6 WAR for 5 seasons, 4 WAR for 5 seasons, and 2 WAR for 5 seasons. That’s 60 total WAR. Am I short-changing him? With no defensive value, I doubt that I am.
For the record, I’m still a fan of all our former Nats, and root for them the do well individually, but never want to see team success for the Mets or (particularly) the Phils. It was a lot of fun watching all of them play in their young primes (and Max’s older prime).
KW
10 Dec 24 at 12:52 pm
We were beholden to Boras (hey that’s alliterative!) for years on this team. Remember when the Lerner’s were accused of being patsys for all of Boras’ clients?
so i thought i’d take a quick peek at our core players/prospects to see who they’re with generally to see how beholden we are right now to Boras.
What I found was interseting: Boras indeed has three of our major players: Gore, Crews, Wood. The other major Agencies out there have Nats, like CAA, Aces, Excel. But most of our players are not listed with an agent, likely b/c they self-negotiated/never disclosed an advisor pre-draft and have yet to sign an extension.
Todd Boss
10 Dec 24 at 1:52 pm
One thing I haven’t seen in the Soto and Ohtani stories is the perspective of what’s going on in other sports. Look at all the NBA players who are making in the same salary range:
https://www.espn.com/nba/salaries
Yes, you have to pay more guys on a baseball team than you do on a basketball one. But why shouldn’t the top baseball players — who play twice as many games a year, usually with no “load management” — make at the same level?
KW
10 Dec 24 at 2:57 pm
And the NFL:
https://www.nfl.com/photos/ranking-the-nfl-s-biggest-contracts-for-2024
Trevor Lawrence makes more than Soto does. Let that sink in.
And yes, the NFL has the screwy contracts where everything isn’t guaranteed. It’s truly amazing that MLBPA has kept every cent in contracts guaranteed.
KW
10 Dec 24 at 3:01 pm
Well… everyone will be in the mix at our slot.
Just lucked our way into #1!
That’s a really big, unlikely boost!
Will
10 Dec 24 at 6:50 pm
Nats Win! (the lottery). AWesome news. Ethan Holliday, welcome to washington.
By my working xls right now we’ll have #1, #49, #87 picks and some significant dollars to work with. I havn’t seen updated bonus pools but #1 overall pick comes with nearly $10M in working cash.
Todd Boss
10 Dec 24 at 9:09 pm