Former Washington Nationals Star Pegged as Top Available Free Agent
The Washington Nationals are no strangers to cultivating young talent just for it to leave in free agency as a nationally recognized superstar.
That was certainly the case with future Hall of Famer Bryce Harper as well as the then spectacular Anthony Rendon, while the team was able to recoup with a trade of Trea Turner before his free agency and this year's offseason prize Juan Soto.
With every contending team "in" on Soto in this year's free agency class, the outfielder can make an immediate impact on any lineup as he is currently the best all-around hitter in MLB.
It is a solid free agency class that we have to look forward to, and Keith Law of The Athletic ranks Juan Soto as the headliner of this class.
"He’s going to put up a bunch of 8-WAR seasons in the next 10 years, and, assuming that’s the length of his contract, should still be an above-average offensive player at the end of it," writes Law, "even if he might move to DH by his mid-30s."
Soto is coming off of a career year, spent with the New York Yankees after being traded for the second time in his career.
The superstar batted .288/.419/.569 with 41 home runs, 109 RBI, and a 178 OPS+ across 713 plate appearances this year in 157 games.
Soto has never finished a season with an OBP lower than .400 and has walked more than he has struck out every year since 2019.
Over his career so far, Soto has hit .285/.421/.532 with 201 home runs, 592 RBI, and a 160 OPS+ across 4,088 plate appearances in 936 games.
The best ability is availability, and Soto has shown that in spades throughout his career, playing in 150 or more games in all five seasons that he was capable of doing so (he debuted for the Nationals on May 20th, 2018, the team's 46th game of the year, but did play in every game for the rest of the season).
What Soto is able to do at the plate is absolutely unheard of in this day and age where the strikeout is not as frowned upon as it once was, especially if you can hit 40 home runs to counter the strikeouts.
Soto can hit 40 home runs and has a strikeout rate of only 17 percent for his career, well below the MLB average of 22 percent since his debut, and he has led MLB in walks twice in his career.
Soto will be a valuable asset to any team that has the resources necessary to pay what is sure to be a steep asking price, and those of us on the outside looking in will be ever the richer for witnessing it.
