We have some concrete news on Juan Soto. The Yankees and Padres are discussing players and are, “far apart,” according to Ken Rosenthal. The important quotes:
“From the Yankees, the Padres’ targets include Clarke Schmidt, who had a 4.64 ERA in 159 innings last season, and Michael King, who is a sell-high candidate after producing a 1.88 ERA in eight starts at the end of the season. The Yankees currently view King as part of their 2024 rotation, but he also is proven as a quality multi-inning reliever.”
“The Padres, in their discussions with the Yankees, have proposed attaching Trent Grisham to Soto, a source said. Such a deal would allow the Yankees to address their needs in both center field and left field. But Grisham, projected to earn nearly $5 million in arbitration, batted just .198 with a .666 OPS last season.”
The demand from San Diego for Soto that Rosenthal (and Heyman) are reporting seems to be along the lines of: King or Schmidt, Drew Thorpe or Chase Hampton and Randy Vazquez or Jhony Brito. The Yankees rejected the offer as too steep. There is some reporting from Rosenthal that the Blue Jays might be another option for San Diego, but it seems more speculative than solid. Almost as if the Padres are looking for some leverage.
Let’s start with Trent Grisham. The glove-first centerfielder is projected to earn about $4.5 million next year with one more year of arbitration left afterwards. Grisham is basically a left-handed Harrison Bader:
Grisham isn’t as fast as Bader, but is an excellent defender. I’m not sure what is going on with his 2023 sprint speed; Grisham was among the fastest players in baseball from 2019-2022. He doesn’t hit much, but makes up for it by taking walks. He’s a bottom of the order hitter at best. The Yankees could do worse as a stopgap replacement for Dominguez, but Grisham isn’t going to win anyone a championship unless he reverts back to his more promising early career form.
So let’s talk about the return for Soto. The Padres want a lot of pitching. The Yankees don’t want to cut their upper level pitching depth in half. I think that the Padres know that they aren’t going to get three MLB-ready starters for one year of their $33 million superstar. King alone, with two very cheap years remaining, isn’t that much less valuable than Soto in pure dollar terms. But the Yankees may need to pay extra to get the player everyone knows they badly want.
The two teams don’t look all that far apart. I think we could end up seeing something like:
Yankees receive: Trent Grisham, Juan Soto
Padres receive: Clark Schmidt, Chase Hampton, Randy Vazquez
The Yankees give up a proven MLB starter with a ton of team control remaining, one of their better Double-A pitching prospects and a fringe but controllable starter who held his own in the majors last year. They don’t give up their version of Seth Lugo, their top pitching prospect and their best depth starter/long reliever in Brito.
I think it’s a fair deal. I think it’s a realistic deal. Maybe some low level prospects end up in there as well. I don’t think they are all that far apart. I think Juan Soto is going to be a Yankee this week.
Your proposal is reasonable. It works on Baseball Trade Value. Yanks get 33.9 in value in exchange for giving up 39.3 in value. Joel Sherman proposed an outrageous deal in the Post this morning in which the Yankees get -1.3 value (they take on both Cronenworth and Carpenter's contracts) in exchange for giving up 59 in value.