Story continues<\/button><\/p>\nBut with his future still uncertain, Soto cracked jokes. He chalked up his impressive performance up to proof of the oft-cited baseball cliche: \u201cThat shows you I’m controlling what I can control.\u201d He predicted that he would sleep well.<\/p>\n
He admitted, though, that relief wouldn’t come on Tuesday. \u201cTomorrow? no. It’s going to be Wednesday, probably.\u201d<\/p>\n
See, wise. Because Tuesday’s lesson might’ve been the toughest of all.<\/p>\n
Soto has been with the Nationals since they signed him out of the Dominican Republic as a teenager in 2015. Recently, he bought a house in the DC area. Even if he always planned to walk away in free agency, he could have stayed with the team for another two-plus years. Except that then he rejected the Nationals’ polite-but-perhaps-perfunctory $440 million, 15-year extension.<\/p>\n
On deadline day, players and people within the game will tell you baseball is a business. And then they’ll tell you again and again. These are not breakups, they’re business transactions. That’s why GMs, when they’re talking about trading the face of their franchise, will call him \u201cthe player\u201d and \u201cthe piece.\u201d<\/p>\n
But consider that some emotions are inevitable.<\/p>\n
Consider Dave Martinez, for whom Soto has played his whole big-league career, describing their relationship: \u201cI talked to his dad a lot, and I said, ‘I know by birth he’s your son, but on the field,’\u201d and then he stopped speaking, tapped his chest and blinked a bit, \u201c’he’s my son.’\u201d<\/p>\n
That was after.<\/p>\n
With hours to go until the deadline, news broke that Juan Soto and Josh Bell, an underrated switch-hitting first baseman with a .301 average and an impressive reel of picks at first, were traded to the Padres. In return the Nationals received long-touted rookie left-handed pitcher MacKenzie Gore; speedy rookie shortstop CJ Abrams; outfield prospects Robert Hassell III and the 6-foot-7 James Wood; pitching prospect Jarlin Susana, who is the furthest from the big leagues but the Nats believe he has the most upside; and veteran Luke Voit, after Eric Hosmer vetoed his inclusion in the deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe set the bar very, very high,\u201d Rizzo said during a news conference that was at times defensive \u2014 \u201cI was the guy who signed him, too,\u201d he said \u2014 and emotional as he appeared close to tears. \u201cAnd then one team exceeded it. And that’s the deal we made.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soto’s impending departure had dominated the baseball news cycle for weeks, always linked to the ambitious Padres driven by aggressive AJ Preller, among other suitors. And yet, \u201cit still feels a little bit shocking and disorienting,\u201d injured veteran reliever Sean Doolittle said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds surreal. Like, saying it out loud, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n
The muted clubhouse TVs showed footage of Soto interspersed with analysis of how the Padres got their guy. The remaining Nationals, those who have been here a little while at least, tried meekly to put words to the loss. Soto and Bell had both come and gone, bound for San Diego, by the time media was allowed in the clubhouse. The goodbyes had been behind closed doors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked for a while and he’s got mixed emotions,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cSo it’s tough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Left behind was, among other things, a struggling team, a championship banner that never did quite get its victory lap, a couple young players pressed into action with big shoes to fill, and lockers in disarray, to be packed up and shipped off to the players in their new homes.<\/p>\n
In front of Soto’s: A box the size of a large kitchen appliance sat full of jerseys and still-muddied red cleats that he doesn’t need where he’s going now. The Cocoa Puffs box still where he left it. A Post-It note picture of a stick figure in a red hat affixed to the front of the wooden stall. And tucked inside, what appeared to be a custom screen-printed T-shirt with a photo of the young fan holding the sign about Soto and her heart, the one he said he would talk to whenever she was at the game.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
<\/noscript><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nOn Juan Soto (pictured), Nationals manager Dave Martinez said: “I talked to his dad a lot, and I said, ‘I know by birth he’s your son, but on the field,’\u201d and then he stopped speaking, tapped his chest and blinked a bit, \u201c’he’s my son.’\u201d (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon)<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\nNationals’ firesale led to Soto trade<\/h2>\n Rizzo said there was no edict to trade, or not to trade, Soto. Ownership \u2014 the outgoing Lerner family whose forthcoming sale of the team must’ve factored in, although it’s hard to tell exactly how \u2014 entrusted him with evaluating the market and making the best decision for the franchise. He felt that meant selling high, as it were, maximizing the return by giving a contending team three potential postseasons of Soto under team control. Of course another way to look at that is two-plus years of exclusive rights to negotiate with a likely future Hall of Famer just coming into his prime.<\/p>\n
Rizzo didn’t quite concede the trade was predicated on an understanding they would be unable to extend Soto. But asked about that he said, \u201cWe did feel that we were not going to be able to extend him.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an explanation, that presents as many moot questions \u2014 such as: why not? \u2014 as it answers. But it does work as an explanation. Even though they made Soto several offers since then, the Nationals set this deal in motion last season, if not before, with a deadline fire sale that left him stranded on a team that he could n’t hope to contend in the next couple years . For all that he is, Soto alone cannot win ballgames. This season has shown that much.<\/p>\n
The evaluators will say their piece about the return and then time will tell better than any projection model ever could. But it’s fair to wonder, right now, what these moves mean in the simplest sense: Are the Nationals better poised to win today than they were yesterday?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we’ve taken several steps forward,\u201d Rizzo said.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, that’s a tautology. If you believe they’ll ever be good again, each passing day brings them only closer. But also, now the teardown is complete. They’ll build something new, something totally disconnected from the 2019 team that has since scattered around baseball. Such is the cycle in sports \u2014 sustainability is possible, consistency is not. What looks like continued dominance in certain markets is, upon closer inspection, perpetual evolution. Perhaps this is the start of what will eventually become a long and illustrious span of success in DC But wouldn’t it have been nice if Juan Soto was here for that?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n