Would the Phillies be able to put together a trade package for Juan Soto??

Phillies working on a Deal package for Juan Soto

Making a good trade for a player is a fool’s errand. Knowing the priorities of one of the participating teams is impossible, no matter how hard you try. Juan Soto would satisfy numerous requirements that became clear during the NLCS for the Phillies:

• solid contact skills
• on base ability
• low strikeout rate
• over the fence powerThe Phillies’ reasons for acquiring Soto are obvious, but what are San Diego’s? Are you afraid about losing him for nothing? Is there too much money in arbitration? You don’t have enough money to pay your organization’s complete payroll because you don’t know how to budget? The Padres should not stop short of going for a title in Soto’s final season with the franchise and send him away, but they most likely will, which leads us back to the Phillies. Would they be able to put together a trade deal if they are a potential dance partner?One would have to figure that trading for perhaps the most complete hitter in the game would require parting with the best prospect in the organization. That would mean Andrew Painter. We are all aware of the tale of his Tommy John surgery and while that wouldn’t deter teams from acquiring him should the Phillies dangle him at all, it might put a bur in their boot to be completely comfortable with the deal. To sweeten it up, the team might want another arm. Just to make sure. The question would be: would that arm necessarily have to be their next best prospect in Mick Abel, or might they take a look at the one the next tier down in Griff McGarry? While he might be something of a risk as a starter, there is the possibility McGarry becomes some kind of high stakes reliever that is able to overpower teams with his arsenal of plus stuff. Is he completely sure where it’s going all the time? Maybe! But the Phillies would likely rather send him away and keep Abel since the latter is more of a sure thing as a starter at this point than McGarry.

  So now, you have two arms going back to the Padres, say Painter and McGarry. Do the Phillies offer more than that? SHOULD they offer more than that?

  Parting with someone like Johan Rojas would probably be met with some pause, albeit not as much from the Phillies side as it would from the Padres side. Rojas is a solid player: elite defensively, but with much to work on with the bat. That was fully on display during the postseason when he was exposed in at bat after at bat after at bat. One could argue with whether or not the dropoff from Rojas to Cristian Pache defensively would have been negated by the upgrade in plate appearances, but that is neither here nor there. With some more seasoning in the minor leagues, Rojas will likely be exactly what he was for the Phillies: bottom of the order hitter who can change a game defensively.

  Is that something San Diego would be interested in right now? They currently have Trent Grisham in center field, an above average glove in his own right, but adding Rojas to a Grisham-Fernando Tatis, Jr. outfield would be where flyballs go to die. But offensively, the shift from what Soto can offer right now to what Rojas can offer is quite the expanse. Enough that Rojas wouldn’t likely be enough.

  So, the Phillies are offering Painter, McGarry and Rojas. Is that enough?

  This is why making a trade for someone like Juan Soto is so difficult. Were the Phillies flush with minor league talent in the way that the Orioles or Rays are, parting with some of that talent to acquire Soto would be easy. As the team sits close to the top of the National League hierarchy, they are in a position where they should be trying to get someone like Soto to push them over the top. Yet as they stand now, parting with prospects like Painter or even Rojas could be an issue with future team building exercises. Matt Winkelman wrote about how spending money is fine so long as you accept the penalties that come with roster building that comes with it and if the Phillies are fine with it, they should plow past whatever luxury tax penalties exist.

  But if we’re talking purely players in terms of equal trade value for Juan Soto, it might be tough to come up with enough talent to balance the trade sheet. If the talks between the two teams actually become (publicly) heated, then it’ll be fascinating to see what names are bandied about. Whoever it might be, it would hurt to part with them. It’s just another thing to watch for this offseason.