On July 16, 2022, greater than 37,000 followers crammed into Nationals Park on a muggy midsummer afternoon. Washington already had 62 losses by that time — nonetheless days earlier than the All-Star break — and there was little hope {that a} second-half surge was coming. Fans had been there to see their homegrown prodigy, Juan Soto, and due to a Star Wars-themed bobblehead giveaway: “Juan Solo.”
Soto had helped the franchise win its first World Series in 2019, and have become the youngest participant to win an NL batting title the next season. On that afternoon, followers clutched their bobbleheads and rose to their toes each time Soto stepped to the batter’s field, as that they had for 5 years. It would have been an earthly 6-3 loss to the Braves — besides that a couple of hours earlier than, The Athletic reported that Soto declined a $440 million extension and the Nationals had been going to attempt to commerce him.
Soto, who had been mired in an uncharacteristic stoop, had been indignant and withdrawn all day. As the sport wore on, the MegaMillions jackpot — now north of $500 million — flashed on the JumboTron. In the dugout, one of many Nationals staffers set free a low whistle, turned to one of many coaches and nodded in Soto’s route.
“Imagine turning down that kind of money?”
Less than three weeks later, Soto was shipped to the San Diego Padres. He cried when he heard the information.
Twenty months after the commerce, Soto smiles as he reminisces about his time with the Nationals. He is carrying a three-quarter sleeve grey t-shirt with the Yankees emblem scripted on the entrance, sitting in entrance of a neat locker crammed with gloves and Under Armour sneakers forward of the 2024 season opener. It has been three months since his commerce from the Padres to the Yankees, his third group in three seasons.
“That was a real family,” Soto says of the 2019 group. Then his smile pale. “And it will never be that way again.”
Soto was bothered by the criticism he obtained after turning down the Nationals supply, a call that precipitated a rift amongst a few of his members of the family. But since Soto turned down that $440 million, Yankees teammate Aaron Judge signed a $360 million deal and Shohei Ohtani signed with the Dodgers for $700 million. Soto is about seven months away from a free-agent payday that, given his age (nonetheless solely 25) and his expertise — which have been in comparison with Ted Williams’ — might reset the market.
He appears happier with New York, enjoying in a stadium ideally constructed for him to launch baseballs into the stands, for the richest franchise in baseball. He has moved on from his tumultuous time in San Diego, the place he endured a prolonged stoop, struggled to attach with teammates and coaches, and knew the Padres had been by no means going to provide him the contract he wished.
Soto made a historic guess on himself. Now, he appears primed to money in.
Through his first 5 video games in New York, Soto has 9 hits and a 1.210 OPS. (Tim Warner / Getty Images)
Soto, a number of group sources imagine, by no means thought the Nationals would truly commerce him, though normal supervisor Mike Rizzo had made it clear when Soto turned down the $440 million that the group must discover the chance. Still, Rizzo may not have pulled the set off, or been in a position to justify the return, if it wasn’t for Padres normal supervisor A.J. Preller.
Preller, generally known as one of many sport’s most energetic GMs — his 2014 hiring was adopted by such an onslaught it was nicknamed “Prellerpalooza” — had lengthy coveted Soto. Rumors flew about different groups’ curiosity, however the Padres had been the one ones keen to half with a handful of prime prospects. A deal got here collectively simply hours earlier than the Aug. 2 commerce deadline.
By his personal requirements, Soto was already having a down 12 months in D.C the primary half of 2022. The 2019 group, on which he’d been the gifted wunderkind, had slowly been dismantled. Gone was Howie Kendrick, who retired after the 2020 season, and who Soto and Victor Robles jokingly known as their baseball dad. Gone was veteran chief Ryan Zimmerman, who retired after ’21. The franchise-altering commerce of stars Max Scherzer and Trea Turner to the Los Angeles Dodgers six months earlier than had made it crystal clear: The 2022 Nationals had been rebuilding.
Perhaps the hardest loss for Soto was hitting coach Kevin Long, who left to take the identical place with the Phillies earlier than the 2022 season. The Nationals changed him with Darnell Coles, who had spent the earlier three seasons with Arizona. Multiple group sources mentioned it wasn’t a superb match with Soto.
“He didn’t connect with Darnell at all,” mentioned a former Nationals coach. “There’s nothing worse than being a player and feeling alone and like the only guy who can help you is Kevin, who is on the other side of the field. I think it hurt Juan and pushed him into seclusion.”
As the losses piled up, Soto — for the primary time in his life — couldn’t slash his method out of a stoop. On June 25, practically 75 video games into the season, Soto was batting .215 with a .795 OPS. In the 4 seasons prior, Soto had by no means hit below .280. His worst prior OPS? A staggering .923 as a 19-year-old rookie. He turned “quiet, more distant” because the season wore on, Nationals sources mentioned. And then the extension supply leaked.
Two days later, Soto was in entrance of a whole bunch of media members after a red-eye coach flight to the Los Angeles All-Star sport. He answered query after query concerning the $440 million he turned down, his future, the place he could possibly be traded. For the primary time in his skilled profession, Soto was confronted with a narrative that didn’t heart on glowing reward about what he might do on the sphere.
“I think that number leaking out really burned him,” mentioned a Nationals supply. “Once it was out, he felt like he was already gone. He’s always been a big trust guy, and he was really hurt that the Nationals did that. I think he felt betrayed.”
“Why is Juan wearing headphones?”
Some of the Padres coaches had been at their wits’ finish. They had referred to as former Nationals coaches, teammates, anybody who knew Soto and may need any perception into easy methods to assimilate him into San Diego’s system. Some of Soto’s teammates additionally sensed that he was distant.
When closed-doors hitters’ conferences started earlier than every collection, Soto would usually have his AirPods in his ears, three group sources advised The Athletic. Teammates had been perturbed, though he had a authentic motive: The early minutes had been usually spent on opposing pitchers’ “tells,” or indicators they may be tipping pitches. Soto, who has all the time been a cerebral hitter, advised the coaches he didn’t need these particulars floating round his mind within the batter’s field.
The headphones had been a small oddity, however the scenario mirrored the Padres’ broader points, which ranged from the clubhouse to the highest of the entrance workplace, as detailed by The Athletic final 12 months. No one might agree on easy methods to attain their latest star. Some within the group thought Soto needs to be left alone, {that a} hands-off method was greatest. Others thought they need to be in additional contact with Soto, checking in with him each day, assessing his moods and looking for workarounds in hopes of a breakthrough.
In D.C., Soto had been the one star remaining. In San Diego, he was initially uncertain of his place, sources say. And he noticed the writing on the wall, given the group’s different monetary commitments: The Padres had been simply going to be a pit cease.
“There’s no money for me here,” Soto mentioned, in keeping with quite a few sources throughout the group, who requested anonymity so as to communicate freely. He was referring to the trio of $300 million contracts the Padres already had on the books in Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis and Xander Bogaerts.
The blockbuster deal to land Soto instantly improved the Padres’ playoff odds. But the issue, no less than initially, was that Soto wasn’t Soto.
“It was all still on my mind,” Soto mentioned of the way in which his Nationals tenure ended. “I didn’t know, in San Diego, how was it going to be? Was it going to be three years or two ? Are we going to be talking about trades again?”
In 52 video games with the Padres in 2022, Soto hit .236/.388/.390, for a .778 OPS. It was simply the worst stretch of his profession. Regardless of how he hit, Soto’s optimistic vitality within the dugout was nonetheless infectious, in keeping with a number of sources who had been there. If you didn’t know Soto was struggling, you wouldn’t have guessed by watching him work together in-game.
“It would be easy to sit here and say, ‘He’s an a——, but he’s really good’. He’s not. He’s got a heart of gold,” mentioned one Padres supply. “He just has trouble trusting people.”
Soto denied having points trusting Padres individuals, however mentioned the gap away from his household within the Dominican Republic was a significant disadvantage of the commerce. In D.C., his mother and father would usually go to for lengthy stretches of time. His mother would cook dinner for him. Soto’s dad was his earliest coach.
After a sluggish begin in 2023, Soto, who performed in all 162 video games, ended the season with a .275/.410/.519 line, adequate to complete sixth in NL MVP voting. But the Padres, a authentic World Series contender, watched the losses pile up and missed the playoffs. Soto took losses notably laborious.
“I always try to be the happy, carefree Juan. I always tried to have fun,” Soto mentioned. “They were a great group of guys and a very talented team. The thing is, we were losing big games that we shouldn’t have, and it’s tough to smile when that happens.”
It’s the million-dollar — or the $440 million-dollar — query: If Soto actually was so upset to depart D.C., a spot the place he had purchased a home, the place he knew everybody and was beloved, why didn’t he simply take the Nationals’ supply?
“He could have had a key to the White House without telling the president he was coming over,” mentioned a Nationals government. “That’s what he meant to those people (in DC).”
Asked if he ever regretted not taking the cash, or questioned how life would have been had he stayed in D.C., Soto mentioned no. He gestures a couple of lockers all the way down to Aaron Judge, who turned down the Yankees extension supply within the spring of 2022, set a brand new American League document in dwelling runs after which cashed in along with his nine-year deal.
“You cannot be selfish. You have to think about the guys who come in behind you,” Soto mentioned. “That’s what Judge did (in opting to test free agency). He made a great deal. Corey Seager, Ohtani, all these guys are setting the market for the guys after them. And if I were to take anything down there (with what the Nats offered) it would make it different, tougher for guys coming up.”
“Setting the market” is common agent-speak, and Soto is represented by Scott Boras, one of many sport’s strongest –and controversial– brokers. There is a faction of executives who imagine Boras wields maybe an excessive amount of affect over Soto, that imagine he has important enter on, for instance, the place Soto ought to hit within the batting order and what Soto ought to say to the media.
Said a San Diego supply: “He’s been fully Boras-ized.”
In 2021, Soto and Long (left) attended a Dodgers playoff sport, carrying Nationals jerseys and cheering on Scherzer and Turner, together with Boras (proper).
In New York, when the topic of forgoing free company got here up, Soto advised reporters the Yankees “know who to talk to.” Yankees GM Brian Cashman has mentioned a number of instances on the document that the group is aware of Soto is nearly actually headed to free company this fall.
Asked how he handled the tumultuous previous two seasons, Soto mentioned: “I really trust my agent. It was a really tough time when I was in DC when they (leaked) the offer. (Boras and I) want to do everything together and push together.”
Boras pushed again on the concept that he has a powerful affect on Soto. “Juan Soto makes his own decisions and own choices,” he advised The Athletic. “He’s a man beyond his years and is more than capable of making decisions his own way.”
Boras, who estimated he’s had about 50 conferences with Soto about his future, mentioned as an agent his job for shoppers is to provide them info. “We operate as lawyers and let them decide what they chose to do,” he mentioned. “And Juan is very much an in-depth and independent thinker.”
“I was hoping to keep negotiating (with the Nationals),” Soto mentioned. “But they just told us, that’s it. At least they were clear about, if you don’t take it, we are trading you.”
Things weren’t as clear in San Diego, whilst rumors swirled this previous offseason that the Padres, tasked with chopping payroll, must transfer Soto and his $31 million wage, a document quantity for an arbitration-eligible participant.
“I kept asking and they were (saying) no, no, no,” Soto mentioned of being traded out of San Diego, “and then out of nowhere, it’s done.”
Asked what he would inform the Soto of two years in the past, he says: “Be prepared. Be prepared for anything.”
Other place gamers who’ve obtained $300-million plus offers — stars corresponding to Mookie Betts, Mike Trout, Judge and Machado — are gamers who can impression the sport on either side of the sphere. But if Soto will get paid, it is going to be for one factor: his bat.
He has lengthy been obsessed along with his swing, meticulous about each element. When Soto struggled within the early a part of the 2019 playoffs, he made Long and a group staffer keep on the park till after midnight so he might get further reps. When he had COVID in 2020, Soto spent his time quarantining watching Nationals video games on TV with a bat. He would dig in and faux to face every pitcher. His swing is a murals, his preparation invokes surgical precision. Soto doesn’t hold bodily notes on pitchers. Everything is in his head.
That Soto opted out of the Yankees spring coaching exhibition video games in Mexico City to high-quality tune that swing isn’t a shock. Never thoughts that he hit .529 with a 1.365 OPS in 17 spring video games; Soto is a perfectionist.
In D.C. he would typically fly in Jorge Mejia, who coached Soto within the Nationals Gulf Coast League and now trains athletes within the Dominican. “He wants someone who knows him as a hitting coach or assistant,” mentioned a Nationals supply. “He likes familiar faces around him. He doesn’t trust a lot of people.”
Perhaps the shrewdest rent the Yankees made this offseason, then, was the addition of Pat Roessler as an assistant hitting coach. Roessler, who spent practically a decade working in Yankees participant improvement, from 2005-14, was the Nationals’ assistant hitting coach for the previous 4 years. In the time he overlapped with Soto, the outfielder received three Silver Slugger Awards, twice completed within the prime 5 in MVP voting and twice led the National League in on-base proportion.
The Yankees, who traded 5 gamers for Soto and Trent Grisham, want Soto to have a monster 12 months, and he’s off to a sensational begin with a .450/.560/.650 line and 1.210 OPS within the first week. A profession season will surely drive up his worth, nevertheless it additionally might endear him to the group and provides the Yankees a leg up within the open market, the place Cashman and Co. determine to be focused on signing Soto long-term.
Soto has household in New York, and expects his mother and father to go to incessantly. With a transfer again over to proper subject — the place he performed the final two seasons in DC — Soto has showcased improved protection; Yankee Stadium’s shallow dimensions could possibly be one other promoting level.
Ultimately, it appears Boras and Soto are after data. The quantity, many within the business count on, will begin at $500 million.
“He’s got big eyes,” mentioned a supply who was with Soto in D.C. “I think he’s after the AAV (average annual value) Ohtani has, without the deferrals.” (Ohtani’s present contract, accounting for its document deferrals, is valued at $46 million a 12 months, good for the best AAV within the sport this 12 months.)
How many groups can be focused on that type of a mega-deal? On one hand, golf equipment have grown more and more cautious of mammoth contracts that may crush a payroll for many years. But Soto tasks to age effectively due to his eye, his regular on-base proportion and the ripple impact his at-bats have. Teammates marvel about the way in which Soto works, how he by no means appears to take a pitch off.
Of the half-dozen executives The Athletic polled, just one was cautious of committing that a lot cash to Soto, whose age and talent set — he already owns a 28.5 WAR — have just about no free-agent comparability.
Boras is coming off an uncharacteristically brutal offseason during which a number of of his most notable shoppers needed to accept shorter, cheaper offers than projected. It’s troublesome to think about that occuring to Soto, barring a disastrous damage.
“If his OPS has the number 1 in front of it,” mentioned one government, “he will get paid.”
Soto is months away from a large payday someplace. Of course he’s smiling.
He guess on himself two and a half years in the past. And, now, right here comes the payoff.
(Top picture: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photos: Denis Poroy / Getty Images; Julio Aguilar / Getty Images; G Fiume / Getty Images)
https://theathletic.com/5383787/2024/04/03/juan-soto-yankees-padres-contract/
