Four reasons the Blue Jays should forget about Juan Soto

What’s the price tag?

It’s been very interesting to read the various guesses about what it might cost to acquire a talent like Soto, especially with 2.5 years of guaranteed contract control. I feel like some articles I’ve read have been objective, and others are completely out to lunch, but there are all kinds of opinions to be found if you’re looking for them.

The thing is, Soto is pretty much an unprecedented case here because of his age and superstar talent. You just don’t see players like this becoming available (I know, I’ve said that a few times now), and that’s why we’re going to see 10 or more teams lining up to make a bid.

The other day I put together a proposed offer that looked like this:

Blue Jays get: 

Juan Soto

Nationals get: 

Teoscar Hernandez
Gabriel Moreno
Ricky Tiedemann
Jordan Groshans
Nate Pearson

Personally, I see this as a significant haul for the Blue Jays to give up, even if it’s understandable for a player like Soto. Hernandez is a two-time Silver Slugger award winner and is only 29 years old, Moreno is a top five prospect in all of baseball, Tiedemann just shot himself into most Top 100 lists, and so on. The Blue Jays could tweak the package of course, but my guess was that the “value” would be somewhere in this range.

However, as I read more speculation throughout the week, I saw Bo Bichette’s name mentioned fairly regularly as a player that would have to go back to Washington to make the value work. I’ve even read (and strongly disagree with) ideas that suggest that both Manoah and Bichette would have to be in the return package.

If the cost is more than what I’ve suggested above, which is already very substantial, then I’m personally not interested in seeing the Blue Jays go any further with their bid. I don’t want to see names like Bichette or Manoah involved, and truthfully, I’d be very surprised if the front office would go that far anyway.