NationalsProspects.com

Reports: Soto Gone

You probably thought with that headline this would be this pic.

Instead, let’s just pause for a brief moment to remember that time when we saw “Bigfoot Riding a Unicorn Across a Double Rainbow.”

This probably couldn’t have come at a worse time as I’m writing this on my lunch break and have appointments both this afternoon and tomorrow morning. I’m withholding judgment until the deal is done and official, but don’t take my silence on the Twitters or in the comments to be anything other than I’m busy.

In the meantime, here’s a place for you guys to comment and commiserate.

12 Commments

  2. How does Hosmer’s rejection affect players? Or will it affect Nats kicking in money to cover Soto/Bell salary?

  3. Thanks Luke!
    Hey Vlad, you should post your previous post on the new guys here.

    The bottom line is as soon as Soto switched agents to Scott Boras he was as good as gone. It was just a matter of when.
    If you care about the city you play in or you care about the fans you don’t hire Scott Boras.

    With Hosmer rejecting the trade it is still incomplete. Fangraphs now has the Nats farm as #8. Stay tuned.

  4. Here’s some info on the new guys:
    CJ Abrams – 21 – drafted in 1st round in 2019 (6th overall) (AAA & MLB
    this year) .313/.364/.507 – AAA, .232/.285/.320 MLB
    Robert Hassell – 20 – drafted in 1st round in 2020 (8th) (A+ league .299/.379/.467)
    MacKenzie Gore – 23 – drafted in 1st round in 2017 (3rd) – MLB – on IL – 70ip, 37bb, 72k, 4.50 era
    James Wood – 19 – drafted 2nd round in 2021 – A league – .337/.453/.601
    Jarlin Susana – 18 – signed out of Dominican – signed Jan 2022 for $1.7m – in Arizona Complex League – 29ip, 11bb, 44k, 2.45 era)

  5. Well, it’s truly the end of an era… of a farm system devoid of prospects.

    Wood and Susana (and Gore, to be honest) are projects. Let’s hope the Nationals lack of development staff don’t break them.

  6. This is a tremendous infusion of talent into the system. We’ll debate forever whether it was “enough.” But these are definitely some headliner guys who will be fun to watch. Plus the massive Mr. Wood is a local from Maryland, and it’s always good when there are some local kids in the system. Wood also was a teammate of Elijah Green for one season at IMG Academy. IMG tweeted a photo of the two, and Wood actually dwarfs the 6’4″ Green.

  7. One of the few good things about this trade is that more eyes will be on this noble site.

  8. I’m really surprised that there weren’t more trades. They apparently couldn’t even get a broken bat for Nelson Cruz, Cesar Hernandez, or any of the other expiring contracts. I wasn’t kidding in recent posts when I said that I was expecting 12-15 new prospects. They got five from the Padres (two of whom have more or less “graduated”) and an aged one from the Braves. Pretty darn good quality, but not much quantity.

    Nevertheless, the farm system is much healthier now . . . if they can actually manage to develop these guys. As Mark noted, Fangraphs has moved the Nats up to the #8 system and said it would have been #5 if Gore wasn’t counted as graduated. It would have been 25-28 before today.

    1. While I suppose they could have gotten a bag of baseballs (or something) for Cruz or Cesar Hernandez, it wouldn’t have been much at all. And the Nats are getting to the point where they have to find places to put people. The Nats’ system felt congested even before they drafted a couple of dozen players, and now they have to find room for 4-5 more players. They did open a bit of room by calling up three guys (Meneses, Palacios, and Vargas) to the big club.

    2. Agreed. I expected to at least offload a reliever or two. Edwards and Cishek aren’t great, but we’ve traded away low level prospects for mediocre relievers many, many times before.

      I didn’t expect to get much value for Cruz or Hernandez, but I would have taken a bag of balls for them. It’s literally better than nothing. And I just realized that it’s not possible anymore to trade guys via the waiver claims, like it used to be, so that avenue is shut too. Strange.

  10. I’m all aboard the Meneses bandwagon.

    Gonna need to find joy in these little moments, because there won’t be much joy from winning in the foreseeable future.

Comments are closed.