NASHVILLE, Tenn. — One tipoff that Juan Soto will likely be traded is the Padres have yet to make the multiyear offer they originally suggested they would make.
If pressed, Padres people will only admit it’s better than 50-50 he’ll be traded even though they’re said to need to cut their surprisingly high $249 million payroll.
But rivals here believe they have no choice. If the Padres don’t trade him, one rival exec said, “They’ll have to take out anther loan.”
Things may have changed with the untimely death of beloved Padres owner and chairman Peter Seidler, whose win-at-all-costs attitude was practically unique.
And thus, Soto appears to stand for now as the best hope for a blockbuster here at baseball’s annual Winter Meetings.
And even Soto — one of the sport’s five or six best hitters — may have to wait.
The markets mostly appear hung up for today while the sport awaits the decisions of two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani and 25-year-old pitching phenom Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and signs point to neither superstar getting a deal done here by the close of the meetings in Wednesday.
A high-ranking executive with one team gunning for Ohtani says it’s his belief that Ohtani plans to meet with teams after the Winter Meetings — though word is the bidding has already gone well north of $500 million, possibly on the way to close to $600 million, as reported here Sunday.
And multiple interested execs say Yamamoto also will hold meetings after teams leave here Wednesday.
While the Yankees have been at the forefront of Soto talks, things hit an impasse Friday with the Padres insisting on both reliever-turned-starter Michael King and right-handed pitching prospect Drew Thorpe in a six-man package (their request also included young pitchers Jhony Brito, Randy Vasquez and two more prospects for Soto and center fielder Trent Grisham).
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Meantime, the Yankees seem adamant about keeping both King and Thorpe.
It’s very hard to see them totally relenting on both pitchers — Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, who has a big voice in the organization, is said to especially love King — so one side or the other would need to compromise or cave quite a bit to forge a quick deal.
Word is the Padres have offers from about five teams for Soto — whose market is somewhat limited by his likely arbitration salary of $32 million and the extreme unlikelihood he’d do a quick deal with an acquiring team.
Complicating matters is that two of those teams are thought to be finalists for Ohtani. Few teams can take on the salaries of both Soto and Ohtani.
Those two teams are believed to be the Blue Jays and Giants, who appear to be among Ohtani finalists, along with the Dodgers, Cubs and incumbent Angels. There was also talk of a legit mystery team — no surprise there.
As for Yamamoto, every big market team seems interested, and it’s no surprise it will take time to winnow down that enormous field. That is extremely unlikely to happen here.
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