Padres MOCK trade idea for Juan Soto

The San Diego Padres have begun the week quite aggressively. They extended Joe Musgrove on a new five-year $100 million contract and traded for all-star Josh Hader. So why stop there?

The Padres have been linked to Juan Soto since the start of the trade rumblings. Which absolutely makes sense. San Diego already has one star 23-year-old player from the Dominican Republic. Imagine adding the other at the same age with World Series Champion on his resume.

Let’s go ahead and mock up a trade sending the multi-all-star to San Diego.

Despite the main trio of talent, this trade is still not enough per baseball trade values. An easy way to make it enough is to send RHP Patrick Corbin to San Diego, which is highly unlikely. The Nationals want the most value for Soto without diminishing it to take a bad contract off the books.

Instead, to make this deal a little more equal on paper I can see reliever Will Harris with Soto. Harris can be activated from the 60-day IL any day now and he would save the Nationals just under $4 million. For San Diego, it makes sense to add another reliever on an expiring deal that has had previous success in this league during the postseason.

Trading away six players isn’t ideal. But, to acquire a player of Soto’s caliber trading away six may be the only option. The reason being the top three players are considered top 100 prospects (C.J. Abrams, Robert Hassell III, and James Wood). Yes, Abrams is no longer on MLB’s top prospect list but he has just 45 games played and was a top 10 prospect before the season started.

Ultimately just because baseball trade values rate a player a certain value, that does not mean Washington will rate said players the same value. Yes, Los Angeles and St. Louis can send over a bigger offer sheet but that does not guarantee they will.

This mock trade would send Washington three top 100 prospects if you consider Abrams a prospect still like me. A controllable big league pitcher in Adrian Morejon. But two young players in 19-year-old Jackson Merrill and 18-year-old Jarlin Susana. I would not be surprised at all if both players were to crack the top 100 prospect list before their big league debut in 3-4 years.

I don’t think Padres will make this type of offer in the offseason. The Nationals should accept it now.

for more coverage follow @LeoLuna93 on twitter