Padres Insider Doesn’t Believe Friars View Juan Soto as Part of Their Future

This will continue to be one of the biggest storylines all year.

The San Diego Padres are not even three games into their 2023 season and A.J. Preller among others has already received multiple questions about the status of Juan Soto's potential extension. His lukewarm answer had led to many hot takes all across the league about whether or not Soto willl be with the Friars long-term.

The Athletic's Dennis Lin has been at the head of the pack that believes the All-Star slugger does not have the best odds to land a historic contract from the Padres anytime soon. He went in-depth on his reasoning in an appearance on The Darren Smith Show.

"I don't think the Padres are ready to throw $550 million at him right now."@dennistlin discussed what stood out about Padres opening day w/ @DSmithShow , when we'll see Campusano & where talks are with Soto/Padreshttps://t.co/6mP1UNIWJc pic.twitter.com/GVIajyxqUw

— Marty Caswell (@MartyCaswell) March 31, 2023

"I think he's definitely open to hearing what the Padres have to say, if they have something to bring to the table," said Lin. "I just don't think the Padres are quite ready to throw $550 million at him. But for all we know, Peter Seidler could be counting up the numbers and they could be wrapping something up as we speak. But he is coming off of his worst season, which is we know is a very good season by the average major leaguer standards." (Via The Darren Smith Show).

Lin would then go to pinpoint timing and also financial structure as the key reasons why San Diego has been hesitant to confidently move forward with extension conversations.

Soto has also been a very busy man as of late. He came into Spring Training with solely baseball on his mind and the Padres' front office was busy making sure that they took care of their leader in Manny Machado and re-signed him. Soto also had to deal with multiple injuries and was away from the team for a bit while representing Team Dominican Republic in the WBC.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Juan Soto will 100% get his money from the Friars if he performs at the level he's shown before with the Nationals. He is just 24-years-old and can take greater strides in his career.