1969 saw the beginning of the franchise, which was initially little more than an additional expansion team with strange jerseys that went on to lose 110 games. After fifty years, there were a few players inducted into the Hall of Fame but no champions. Then, after years of aggressive investment and dealing by the front management, Juan Soto led the club to victory in their division and ultimately the World Series.
In 2019, the Washington Nationals were finally able to achieve their goal of winning the World Series. This prediction came true. The San Diego Padres are keeping their fingers crossed for their very own sequel.
The Padres, who are expansion cousins of the Montreal Expos and who subsequently relocated to Washington, have never been very close to winning a championship. The Expos moved from Montreal to Washington. Their last game in the World Series was slated to take place on October 25, 1998, and it was a matchup versus the Yankees in the Bronx. They were defeated without ever having a chance to play the game. On that particular day, Soto was brought into the world in the Dominican Republic.
Now playing for the Padres, Soto moves on to the next stage of a career that got off to an almost unrivalled start. According to Baseball Reference, these are some of the 10 historical players who are most comparable to Geovany Soto through age 22 while he is still in the midst of his age-23 season: Mike Trout, Hank Aaron, Miguel Cabrera, Ken Griffey Jr., Mickey Mantle, and Frank Robinson are some of the best players in baseball history.
That’s how wonderful the soto is. Because of this, he was able to comfortably decline an offer of $440 million in guaranteed compensation from the Nationals last month. Because of this, the Padres were required to give him an extravagant package of players in order to get his services on Tuesday, the day that the trade deadline occurred.
In exchange for first baseman Luke Voit and five young prospects, the Washington Nationals traded shortstop C.J. Abrams, outfielder Robert Hassell III, pitcher Jarlin Susana, and switch-hitting first baseman Josh Bell to the San Diego Padres. James Wood was also included in the trade. All five were highly respected amateurs who have, to this point, lived up to the expectations placed on them. None of them have yet to complete a season at the major league level.
Before Soto became a free agent at the end of the 2024 season, the club was not in position to win. The Nationals were able to obtain an incredible amount of value in return by dealing Soto during this time, which came with the benefit of the acquiring team having three possible postseason runs. Building around Soto may have been the best choice, but doing so was a hazardous gamble considering that the team was up for sale and that Soto’s agent, Scott Boras, has a track record of demanding the highest possible salaries from free agents.
The Nationals have been quite aggressive in their pursuit of Boras’s top clientele. Team Boras players like as Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon, Max Scherzer, Soto, Stephen Strasburg, and Jayson Werth were instrumental in general manager Mike Rizzo and the Lerner family’s success in constructing five playoff teams in eight seasons through 2019.
However, if you play at a table with big stakes, you run the risk of losing in the same way that you may win. And at this point, the Nationals are the team that is losing more games than any other club.
In 2019, he was successful in convincing ownership to pay third baseman Manny Machado the first ever $300 million salary for a player in the history of baseball. Prior to the start of the previous season, he offered even more money to shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr.: $340 million for 14 years. When Preller took Tatis from the Chicago White Sox and sent him to the Cleveland Indians in exchange for James Shields in 2016, Tatis was just 17 years old.
Josh Hader, a four-time All-Star closer, was acquired by the Padres in a trade with Milwaukee on Monday, and the versatile Brandon Drury (.274 with 20 home runs) was acquired by the Padres on Tuesday in a deal with Cincinnati. The trade that involved Soto and Bell was not even the only headliner for the Padres at the trade deadline.
In addition, the organisation sent first baseman Eric Hosmer to Boston for a player in the minor leagues after Hosmer exercised his right to a restricted no-trade clause prior to being included in the deal for Juan Soto.
However, nobody responded with nearly the same level of desperation as the Padres, who had waited many years for this opportunity to finally arrive. They suffered through a string of nine consecutive losing seasons before finally qualifying for the playoffs during the pandemic-shortened season of 2020. That season was also the only one since 1998 in which they were victorious in a playoff round.