What Might it Cost to Acquire Juan Soto?
A not-so-short analysis.
I was curious how much the Mets might have to give up to get Juan Soto, so I took a look at some historical comps. The short answer? Soto is a generational talent, but history appears to show that accepting a bad contract (i.e. Patrick Corbin) and a four player package (a Top 10 prospect, a second prospect ranked 40–60th, and two other pieces, i.e. a useful reliever and a longshot prospect) could get it done.
There are two primary ways of analyzing what a player might be worth in trade. The first is to try to determine how good the player actually is. In practice, this is an analysis of $/WAR, roster optimization, aging curves, Statcast metrics and a lot of team proprietary data that we don’t have access to. The second way is to look at what the market might bear. We do this by looking at comparable deals from the recent past.
The challenge was finding a situation that was actually comparable. Juan Soto is an absolute superstar. He can do it all. He can hit for power, he has incredible plate discipline, he’s been healthy, and he’s incredibly young. He’s got a career .293/.427/.541 batting line all compiled before his 24th birthday. He has 118 HR despite walking 452 times and losing 2/3rds of a season to COVID. The numbers are outrageous and aren’t really worth dwelling on.
Ok, just one stat. Here’s the full list of players who have compiled a 140 OPS+ or better and 100+ HR or more by age 23, sorted by OPS+, since 1969:
1. Mike Trout
2. Albert Pujols
3. Juan Soto
4. Ken Griffey Jr.
5. Cody Bellinger
6. Miguel Cabrera
That’s it.
There are very few comparables (1) traded early in their careers, (2) with at least one year of team control remaining, and (3) who were superstars. Let’s face it: this isn’t a situation we’ve really seen before. Nonetheless, I scoured my memory (and asked Twitter) for stars who were traded. Here are the players that get the closest:
By age and hitting skill, Miguel Cabrera is the closest comparison — a near dead-ringer. Cabrera is the youngest player on the list and hit .313/.388/.542 (929 OPS) over his first four seasons compared to Soto’s .293/.427/.541 (968 OPS). However Soto is both younger and came up earlier, with his stats including his age 19 season.
Meanwhile, Mookie Betts is the best player on the list by WAR. However, Betts’s value came from being a complete player, a ridiculous baserunner and a Gold Glove defender, rather than the best hitter in the league. Betts’s stat line also includes his prime, ages 24–26.
Most importantly, neither of the closest comparisons come anywhere close to the years of team control remaining. As such, there are no real comps to the value provided by Juan Soto’s age 23, 24 and 25 seasons — potentially three playoff runs! — but this list is helpful nonetheless.
What makes this even harder is that the circumstances of both the Cabrera and Betts deals were unusual. Both were financially-motivated, and both also packaged the player with a more expensive veteran (by a weird quirk of history, both happened to be one of the very few black, lefthanded starters in the game).
Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers for Dallas Trahern (minors), Burke Badenhop, Frankie De La Cruz, Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller and Mike Rabelo.
History is unfriendly to this trade, but it landed the Marlins two of the top ten prospects in all of baseball in Maybin and Miller. (Here are some other players who were ranked in the Top 20 that year: Alex Gordon, Justin Upton, Troy Tulowitzki, Yovani Gallardo, Evan Longoria, and Ryan Braun). Had Maybin and Miller produced for the Marlins — instead of flourishing elsewhere — or had they landed one of those other future stars, this deal would look much less lopsided. Burke Badenhop spent eight years in the majors and posted a 3.74 ERA. Frankie De La Cruz had mixed results in the minors but could reportedly throw 100 mph (RIP). Mike Rabelo was organizational filler, a 26 year old catcher with a career 671 MiLB OPS. Dallas Trahern was a 34th round pick who had thrown 162 decent innings in Double-A in 2007.
Cabrera was also packaged with Dontrelle Willis, a pitcher perceived to have value remaining. Willis was just one year removed from a 3.87 ERA over 223 IP, and just two years removed from a 2.63 ERA and a league-leading 22 wins. There were a lot of miles on Willis’s arm, and he struggled to a 5.17 ERA in 2007 — but he had two years remaining before free agency, and the Tigers actually extended him.
Mookie Betts, David Price and cash to the Dodgers for Jeter Downs, Alex Verdugo and Connor Wong
The Red Sox might be a big-market team, but this trade was even more clearly about money than the Cabrera deal. Jeter Downs was a first round pick in 2017, Alex Verdugo was a second round pick in 2014, and Connor Wong was a third round pick in 2017, but none were ranked very highly at the time of the trade. Verdugo ranked #35 on MLB’s Top 100 prospects list in 2019 and had already played 158 decent games for the Dodgers (.282/.335/.439) at the time of the deal. Downs had reached #44 on the list in 2020, but he and Wong were putting up middling statistics in the minor leagues, peaking with the Double-A Tulsa Drillers.
More importantly, Boston media speculated that Mookie Betts would not resign with the Red Sox without testing the free agent market. David Price, who was still effective but had only pitched an average of 119 innings over the three prior seasons (2017–2019), appeared to be entering the tail end of his career and was owed a whopping $96 million over his final three seasons. The Red Sox paid half.
The other deals are similarly all over the place. Francisco Lindor was also packaged with a pitcher (Carrasco) for Isaiah Greene (minors), Josh Wolf (minors), Andres Gimenez and Amed Rosario. Mets fans are already familiar with Gimenez and Rosario but, as a quick reminder, Gimenez peaked at #58 on MLB’s Top 100 and Rosario spiked up to #5 after a strong 2016 season split between St. Lucie and Binghamton. Rosario’s star had faded somewhat by the time of the Lindor deal, as he had failed to take “the leap” in 403 games with the Mets. Wolf and Greene were both low level prospects and, despite much of #MetsTwitter crying over losing Wolf, the second rounder had only five innings in rookie ball to his name. Carrasco, like Willis, was viewed as a positive piece in that trade: he posted a 2.91 ERA over 80 innings in 2020 after a return from leukemia and was due just $13 million per year in 2021 and 2022.
Trea Turner’s deal is even harder to decipher. He was traded along with Scherzer in the middle of a pennant race to the win-now Dodgers with one full year remaining. Scherzer was the bigger star (and acted like it, absolutely carrying the Dodgers down the stretch in their NL West race, posting 2.7 WAR over just 11 starts) but Turner might have been the bigger prize. The Dodgers parted with Gerardo Carrillo (minors), Donovan Casey (minors), Josiah Gray and Keibert Ruiz for the pair, with Gray and Ruiz ranking #62 and #68 on MLB’s Top 100 list respectively prior to 2020. (Interestingly, Gray came to the Dodgers in the same trade that brought them Jeter Downs, who was traded to the Red Sox for Betts).
So what’s the ultimate formula? Cabrera brought two consensus Top Ten prospects, plus other parts, though he was packaged with Willis, another player with apparent value. Betts brought much less, two Top ~40 prospects and another piece, because he was attached to Price’s $92 million price tag. Lindor netted two MLB-ready players, one of whom was was ranked around 50th, and another decent prospect, and was packaged with Carrasco.
There are many variables, but Cabrera+Willis is probably the most valuable package given up, followed by Lindor+Carrasco, with Betts+Price close behind. The trade returns appear to reflect this. Meanwhile Soto is not clearly better than Cabrera or Betts, although you could make the argument that he’s the best of the bunch. The major distinguishing factor is that he will have two years of team control after this one.
My guess is that the Nationals will attach Patrick Corbin, who is owed $59 million over the next two years. Assuming (for argument’s sake) that the Nationals pay half, and assuming that Corbin is valueless, his $30 million in dead weight is more cumbersome than than either Price or Willis.
A deal for Soto and Corbin would fall closest to the Cabrera example. Willis, despite never returning to form, would probably be percieved as more valuable than Corbin, plus there is 1+ extra years of control over Soto compared to Cabrera. If a team takes half of Corbin’s contract, I think that a deal for Soto can get done for one a Top 10 (instead of two for Cabrera and zero for Betts), a second prospect ranked 40–60th, and two other pieces (i.e. a useful reliever and a longshot prospect).
For the Mets, that might look like Francisco Alvarez (#2), Ronny Mauricio (#52), Drew Smith and someone way down the Mets’ team list (like Robert Dominguez or Jaylen Palmer). Or, if the Mets are lucky, it could center around Brett Baty (#20) instead of Alvarez.
Either deal would be a steep price to pay, and there would be the additional hurdles of dealing within the division. But the Mets currently sit in first place. Their owner is a billionaire. They haven’t won a playoff game in seven years. And Soto would pair with Lindor, Alonso, McNeil and Marte in 2023 and 2024. It’s a tempting proposition, even with Alvarez. With Baty instead, I think it’s a no-brainer.
