Let’s Paint a Return for Soto
We heard a couple of days ago that the situation was looking as if it's down to 4 teams, the Cardinals, Padres, Dodgers and Rangers. This is of course, as MLBTR wrote, not a final four of any sort, and as always a mystery team can come out of the woodwork at any time. If someone wins their next 4 games, maybe they suddenly see their playoff odds as being within "going for it" range. If you see acquiring Soto as acquiring a top 3 bat in the league for 3 playoff runs, and suddenly think you have a good shot at 3 instead of 2, maybe you become more willing to move your top prospect, especially if they are far from debuting and don't line up well with your current competitive window.
We’ve since heard that the Rangers are lagging behind the other three in offers, and they are almost definitely not playing postseason innings this season, so it’s hard for me to imagine them selling 3-5 extraordinary prospects for Soto. Sure they would have him for the next 2 years, but other teams are seeking to acquire him in hopes of winning a world series this year, which Texas simply isn’t going to do. For this piece I’m going to assume Texas doesn’t keep up with the other three teams' offers, as I just think the other 3 are way more likely to push considerable chips into the pot for ‘22. Soto is amazing, but he’s not going to be worth 10-15 wins in the next two months, which he would need to be for Texas to think they are going to the postseason this year.
Additionally, yesterday Seattle sent their two consensus top prospects to Cincinnati to pry Luis Castillo away after years of rumors involving the righty, which 100% takes them out of the running for Soto’s services. They weren't mentioned in Heyman's tweet that MLBTR wrote about in the link above, but they were another team that some speculated would be in on Soto.
I'm going to try to map out what some hypothetical returns for Soto from each of the three “remaining” suitors might look like. Any deal is going to start with these teams’ top 3-4 prospects.
For the teams in question, from what I can tell, these are those top 3 players.
- Cardinals - Jordan Walker, Nolan Gorman, Dylan Carlson
- Padres - Luis Campusano, C.J Abrams, Robert Hassell III
- Dodgers - Diego Cartaya, Bobby Miller, Andy Pages
All 4 of these base packages are stacked. There are almost no players on the planet you could not pry from their current organizations if you were willing to move any of these trios, which speaks to Soto’s unique profile of age/ability/control. Put another way, I think if Shohei Ohtani were made available tonight, there’s a decent chance a package like this (especially the Cardinals hypothetical offer) Could land him. I’ll follow this up with a piece going into greater detail on these packages, what I think is most likely to be added to them, and my best guess at where each team will draw the line as far as overall package value goes in terms of acquiring Soto.
A (not so) brief summary:
Cardinals:
Walker - 20 year old 3B in AA, split ‘21 between A and A+. 10 HR/15 SB in 363 PA’s in ‘22. Has made remarkable strides in jump from A+ to AA:
- ‘21 = 6.1 BB%, 27 K%
- ‘22 = 11.3 BB%, 22 K%
You don’t need to be Bill James to understand that reducing your K rate by 5% while increasing your walk rate by the same amount over the course of a year is a serious change. Doing it while advancing from High-A to AA is insane. Walker is already near the summit of many prospect ranking lists, and he's more likely to rise into the top 5 than he is to fall out of the top 10 the next time they are released.
I haven’t even mentioned his glove or his power/speed combo ability yet. The dude is as close to a surefire starter for an extended period of time as 20 year old's get outside of Trout, A-Rod, Machado, Harper types that debut ridiculously young. He might get a taste of AAA later this year, and I think it's a decent bet that he could add real value to the Cardinals 2023 team if he's not traded. He's a stellar player and has only gotten better over his time as a pro.
Gorman - 22 years old, has seen his star dim a bit over the past year as his K rates skyrocketed at AAA in early ‘22, and only maintained his 2021 line by BABIPing .370. All of that said, he’s hit 11 HR’s in his first 206 PA’s in the show with a 114 wRC+ and a .355 xwOBA.
Again, he’s 22, and looks very likely to be a flexible defender with legit power who doesn’t have to sell out considerably to reach it. Every team in the league wants a player like this. He could just as easily be the majority of the return for Frankie Montas if St. Louis ends up missing out on Soto or decides the price tag is too steep.
Carlson - Carlson was a heralded prospect prior to graduating and he’s delivered. He’s produced 4.5 fWAR over his first 266 games/1063 PA’s while manning right and center as a plus defender in each, all while making league minimum pay. The guy has been a terrific value for the Cards. We know Washington is seeking ML ready or adjacent talent, so he would seem to fit the ask to a T.
There are not many players in the league as proven as him while as cheap and young as him, with his projections and control. ZiPS thinks he’ll generate ~9 wins over the next 3 years, and his 2.8 2024 projection puts him as the 10th most valuable Center Fielder in the league at a time when he’ll still be making well less than a market rate salary.
At 23 (almost 24) he’s still young, and you can understand why Rizzo would see him as a worthwhile target in a return. He’s an established valuable big leaguer with a ton of team control left, and could presumably be flipped himself in a year or two if his trajectory stays similar to further accelerate the rebuilding process.
Padres:
Campusano - The almost 24 year old catcher hit at a 148 wRC+ clip as a 20 year old in A+ in ‘19 prior to Covid-19's debut. He has returned the past year and a half to hit 23 HR’s while hitting ~15% above league average across 143 games / 599 PA’s in AAA as a 22/23 year old. He’s one of the premier catching prospects in the game and while every team needs catchers, they really value backstops who can hit. There’s a reason why Will Smith is probably the most valuable catcher value-wise in the game today, and it’s because of the fact that he can hit baseballs very hard very often while being more than passable behind the dish. Ben Clemens recently put it this way;
“ In my estimation, he’s the best catcher in baseball, and I don’t think it’s particularly close. His bat is so good that he’d be a fine DH or first baseman, but it truly stands out in the wasteland that is catcher offense in 2022; backstops are hitting .226/.296/.368 in aggregate.”
That’s serious praise and I think it’s fitting. Campusano is one of the few guys on a shortlist to potentially dethrone Smith at some point in the next few years. In my mind, the only catchers in the minors who are both very close to the majors and project to outproduce Campusano are Francisco Alvarez and Gabriel Moreno, though I don't think Ivan Herrera (who has a chance at being included in this eventual trade himself) is far behind these guys.
Abrams - C.J. Abrams has been an above average hitting middle infielder at each level of the minors, most recently delivering a line of .314/.364/.507 in 151 PA’s in AAA to begin this season. He was brought up after that strong start, and has so far played ~75% SS and 25% 2B. He hasn’t started strong, getting subpar defensive measurements per UZR and DRS, while registering a 75 wRC+. He’s not hitting the ball very hard (86 mph avg. exit velo per Statcast) and while he isn’t striking out much at 19.4%, he’s walking less than 3% of the time. Tough to produce when you don’t walk and your swings result in subpar contact.
His projections have slipped from when he was a top prospect, but the pedigree is obviously huge, and plenty of extremely well regarded players have struggled in their first taste of big league pitching. Facing Carlos Rodon, Julio Urias and the like is worlds away from plate appearances against some of the AAAA relievers he was up against at times just a couple of months ago. He could easily wind up being a super valuable middle infielder still, and he has 6 years of team control left.
Hassel III - The 8th overall pick of the 2020 draft, at 20 years old he’s putting up a 130+ wRC+ at A+. He’s been a legitimate power/speed threat, with 10 bombs and 20 steals thus far (and he’s only been thrown out three times). The power isn’t the HR or flyout brand either, as he’s on pace for 35-40 doubles. There’s probably some BABIP inflation in his performance as staying north of .350 is very difficult to do for a season, let alone a career (there are currently 16 qualifying hitters above the mark in the league for '22) but he did put up a .385 mark in 400+ PA’s in Rookie league, and the speed is real, so regression might mean .320 or .330 rather than .310.
One component to consider in his performance so far is that he’s hitting a lot of ground balls, 53%, which with the current BABIP luck and speed is going to inflate his numbers even more than it would for other players (such as those who hit more fly balls and/or are more of a three-true-outcomes type).
He’s likely going to need to put some of those into the air to reach his peak potential, as there just aren’t a lot of cases of guys hitting the ball on the ground that often and succeeding at the highest level today. Obviously a premier talent, a guy who is succeeding at a young age, and one who will probably get to peek at AA pitching in his age 20 season.
Dodgers:
Cartaya - Like Hassel III, Cartaya is a 20 year old who has been excelling in High A this year. Other than that the 32nd overall prospect per Fangraphs profiles quite differently. He’s not a speed guy at all, having made only one (successful) attempt at a swipe as a professional, but he does almost everything else well, oh and he’s a catcher. Fangraphs pegs him as a 50 FV guy, but after 330 PA’s at A and A+ this year where he’s tagged 17 HR’s, walked ~13% of the time, and only struck out in ~28% of PA’s, I think he’s got a shot at receiving an upgrade when he’s reevaluated next.
He’s gotten on base 40% of the time since the beginning of 2021, and generally speaking catchers who hit 50% above league average for two years straight in the minors at a young age relative to level are going to receive a ton of attention. He’s 4 years younger than Campusano, so if the Nationals want MLB ready talent as we’ve heard they do, Cartaya is maybe too far away from the show to be preferred by them, but he’s a seriously talented kid who like Hassell III will likely get a shot in AA this year as a 20 year old, and certainly will next year at only 21.
Miller - Bobby Miller is filthy, in 76 innings at AA this year he’s striking out 30% of hitters while walking ~9%. The righty generates a decent amount of grounders (49%) and has suppressed home runs at a solid rate (9.4% HR/FB, 0.6 HR/9 in ‘22).
He looks like he has a good shot to start at the highest level soon, and I think he’s got a chance of getting called up by LA late in the season this year to supplement the rotation or as a boost to the bullpen. He has crazy high velocity, getting over 100 as a starter, and with 2 pitches already rated as well above average and another one the way, could provide value to the parent club today if he was used in the right role.
He’s almost as safe a bet as a AA starter can be to provide good value in a major league rotation at some point down the line. For context, he's put together a stellar AA profile with the 6th best K rate, the 9th best K%-BB%, 2nd best FIP, and has suppressed long balls better than all but 2 other qualifying pitchers at the level.
The Dodgers certainly value him as a highly likely contributor to their staff in the very near future, and it would take a tremendous player (like Soto is) to get them to include him in any package. Starters with this minor league track record don’t get moved a ton.
Pages - Andy Pages dominated High-A in 2021, in 120 games he slugged 31 homers, walked >14% of the time, limited his K% to 23%, with an OBP of .394, all with a BABIP of .305. He did all of this at 20 years old.
So far this year he hasn’t been quite as dominant, registering a 101 wRC+ that pales in comparison to the 152 mark he collected in ‘21, but he has maintained a lot of what he was doing well, and I think a neutral eye would assume there’s a bit of BABIP regression to the mean that will help him out as the year progresses.
So far in AA he’s hit 17 HR’s in 393 PA’s, continued to walk at a healthy 11% rate, while actually reducing his strikeout rate to 23%. He’s done all of this with a BABIP of 270, which isn’t crazy low, but I think we can anticipate it to drift upwards as his sample size grows.
One interesting quirk in his game, he hits a TON of infield fly balls, also known as pop-ups, also known as essentially the same value as a strikeout. His 26.5% mark this year is somehow lower than his 29.8% mark last year, where he popped out to the infield 50 times… I am not sure how this fits into his overall profile if I’m completely honest, but I think it’s a bizarre aspect of an otherwise phenomenal player’s game. Pages has extraordinary power, and isn’t selling out for it, and he could easily be projected to be an above average regular in Left for LA as soon as next year. He’d likely be in Right, but Mookie Betts isn’t getting pushed out of that spot in the immediate future, so it’s likely Left and some rotations through the DH slot for Pages if he winds up in Dodger Blue.
I think looking at each of these groupings, the St. Louis offer is the strongest, with San Diego's coming in close behind. The Dodger's trio is similarly exceptional, but if Washington really wants players who are basically ready for the show, they aren't going to value guys like Cartaya and Pages the same as a team who is less concerned about timelines.
My gut feeling is that none of these packages are enough, and I'm going to predict that in the end Los Angeles will offer to take on the entirety of Patrick Corbin's contract (and him as well of course) in lieu of expanding their offer beyond a 4th top prospect. If (when) they are asked to add that 4th, it will almost certainly be Michael Busch, but if he's included, I feel doubtful they go beyond him.
If Washington is open to a hybrid offer of some high quality and some quantity, LA could definitely sweeten the deal in a way that the other two teams just are unable to do. LA has 11 prospects with a 40 FV rating and 3 more at 45+. St. Louis and San Diego each have one total within those tiers.
If I'm LA, my angle is to try and offer 2 of the three guys from the trio I presented, three players from the 40 - 45+ group, and to take on Patrick Corbin's entire contract. For San Diego to beat that without taking on Corbin's contract, they are going to need to include James Wood.
I imagine St. Louis will be pressured to include the previously mentioned Herrera, and/or Matthew Liberatore, the lefty they received in return for shipping Randy Arozarena to Tampa a couple of years ago.
That's a steep price to pay for either club, basically removing the whole of their most well regarded tier of youngsters from their systems, and I have a feeling both will be less likely than LA to eat all of Corbin's deal. Both also simply cannot counter LA's possible bulk inclusion of players who project to be role players at the major league level, so LA making such an offer would force them to either include those other absolute top level pieces in their systems, or to back out of the competition for Soto's services.
There's always the unknown, the massive unknown, that we don't know how Washington really values each of these guys. I think there's a high chance that any of them could be seen as worth 5 FV points in either direction, but that's my admittedly 100% outsiders take. If they see Campusano as the best catcher prospect in baseball for example, and 100% believe C.J. Abrams can be a top tier starting SS for the next 10 years, the math changes considerably. Maybe they don't like Jordan Walker's glove, or don't see Cartaya as likely to stick at catcher long term. There are always a ton of unknowns in a thought experiment like this, but this is a great example of how I like to think about baseball to myself, and a prime example of what kind of stuff I want to write about.
The next 48 hours are going to reshape the landscape of the league, and will dramatically change the trajectory of Washington's, as well as at least one of these other club's future's. It's one of my favorite days of the year.