Washington Nationals: DoD’s Staffs Thoughts On Juan Soto Extension Talks
By Max Rayman
The staff at District on Deck and Half Street High Heat got together to answer a few questions regarding the recent Juan Soto extension news.
Special thanks to Nationals Source, Ryan, and Nick for their help.
Thoughts on the Nationals 15 year, $440 million offer ($29.3 million AAV)?
Max: This offer would have been the largest in MLB history and proves the Washington Nationals are set on locking up their star. No deferrals are excellent, but the AAV was too low and the contract was reportedly backloaded.
Ryan: Right off the bat when you see this offer it appears great with a record-breaking $440 million offer. But, when you start to see the details of the offer, it loses its appeal. 15 years is a downside for a player to sign with a franchise that has this much uncertainty attached to it (new ownership, bad farm, long rebuild ahead) and the deal was heavily back-loaded which changes the value of the deal. Lastly, a $29 mill AAV is not going to cut it to get Soto to sign (Patrik Corbin’s AAV is $29.5 mill his last two seasons on the Nats).
Nick: It is definitely one of the better offers we’ve seen the Lerner’s make, but it isn’t necessarily competitive. I know it sounds crazy when it’s over $400 million, but the AAV of $29.3 wouldn’t even rank top 20 in the league. You’d probably need to get close to $40 million AAV to sign Soto in general, but you could knock off a few million on the AAV in exchange for length of the deal, which it seems the Nats tried to do here. It was just too much off the AAV. I think an AAV of $35/36 million would do it.
Nationals Source: There are holes in this offer but that 440 number is massive. It provides a lot of security and is the 3rd largest financial commitment in all of sports. You would think they are close on the total and this would prompt some actual negotiations but reports say there was no counter.