The biggest deadline deal ever? Are the Padres the NL's new team to beat? What to make of blockbuster Juan Soto trade

04.08.2022 - 15:43 espn.com

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.

Sporting shooting Rangers Alden Gonzalez Juan Soto Washington county San Diego county Henderson

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Mr. Stats’ Notes: Shared history for Padres, Nationals

In a public letter to Nationals fans from the Lerner family, published in the 2022 Nationals Media Guide, Washington’s principal owners wrote: “What more can you say about Juan Soto? He has become a pillar of our organization and one of the best players in Major League Baseball right before our eyes. Not only does he have incredible talent, but his attitude, energy and enthusiasm are infectious.”

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As they take the Field of Dreams, where do the Chicago Cubs stand in their latest rebuild?

CHICAGO — Last Tuesday, at the brink of MLB's trade deadline, Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer had a decision to make: Trade catcher Willson Contreras for what he believed was below market value, or keep him and potentially get an extra draft pick if Contreras leaves as a free agent at the end of the season.

How Juan Soto became a San Diego Padre -- inside the biggest deal in baseball history

BLEARY-EYED AND SLEEP-DEPRIVED, their five-o'clock shadows looking more like 10, A.J. Preller and Mike Rizzo lurched into their offices on opposite coasts early Tuesday morning ready to do the unthinkable. Pulling off the biggest trade in the century-and-a-half-long history of Major League Baseball had taken the two general managers to the brink of exhaustion — and done the same to Juan Soto, the superstar outfielder who in a few hours would be dealt by Rizzo's Washington Nationals to Preller's San Diego Padres. For a deal so complicated, so consequential, so tectonic, though, an unfamiliar feeling that morning overwhelmed the principals of such a massive endeavor: peace.

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Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN