Juan Soto is a San Diego Padre. In the biggest blockbuster of the 2022 MLB trade deadline, the Washington Nationals dealt the 23-year-old megastar for a treasure trove of top prospects.
Now that Soto will be playing his home games at Petco Park, what does it mean for the Padres and the rest of baseball this season and beyond?
Has there ever been a midseason trade quite this monumental? ESPN baseball experts Bradford Doolittle, Alden Gonzalez, Joon Lee, Jesse Rogers and David Schoenfield answer the biggest questions. Alden Gonzalez: Imagine Mike Trout getting traded in the middle of the 2015 season.
Or Ken Griffey Jr. in 1993. Or Rickey Henderson in 1982. Or Willie Mays in 1954. Or Babe Ruth in… oh, wait, there it is. Yep, you might have to go back to the early part of the 20th century — to Babe Ruth literally getting sold to the Yankees in the most infamous deal in baseball history — to find a suitable comp to the Nationals trading a 23-year-old Soto.