The Argument For (And Against) a Juan Soto Trade for the Texas Rangers

What Juan Soto Brings to the Texas Rangers

Let’s start with what he does better than anyone. Say it with me, Billy Beane: he gets on base! Juan Soto and walks go together like peanut butter and jelly.

As of the writing of this post (All-Star break), he leads Major League Baseball with 79 walks. Only four of those 79 have been intentional. He has the most walks of any player since his debut in 2018 – almost 50 more than Bryce Harper in second. In this dead ball era, one could argue that simply getting on base is the most effective way to win games through your offense. The Astros, Yankees, Cubs, and Dodgers all rank among the top six teams in both walks drawn and winning percentage since 2015. It’s not all about hits – just ask the Rockies, who lead the National League in team hits during that span and have next to zero playoff success to show for it.

Yes, there are outliers to primarily drawing walks as your pièce de résistance, but there’s a reason guys like Bregman, Harper, Trout, Votto, and Freeman rank among the leagues best when it comes to plate discipline. Soto clears that group. The Rangers have walked less than 23 of the 29 other clubs in baseball this year, and when your team batting average floats around .240 like Texas’ does, you could so, so badly behoove from placing a guy like him at the top of your lineup.

Soto’s .968 OPS ranks first in the N.L. since his debut and third in the Majors. If you choose not to pitch to him, he’s going to work his way to first base. If you choose to gamble – and you’ll probably lose by putting anything in his zone – he’s going to accumulate even more bases with the power in his bat. His UZR rating in the outfield has improved significantly since switching from left to right field in 2021. He’s racked up a career 21.0 WAR three months before his 24th birthday. He swings at less than 22% of pitches outside of his strike zone, ranking among the leagues’ best.

All of these numbers add up to one phenomenal baseball player. You could make the argument Soto would instantly become the best Texas Ranger (at the time of their tenure, anyway) since Hamilton or Beltre. Wins Above Replacement is not just some stat for nerds to fawn over – it matters to show how much value these players bring to winning. Juan Soto is a winning baseball player, and he will bring that winning formula to the Texas Rangers.

What the Texas Rangers Bring to the Table

The Texas Rangers are 41-49 as I write this post with the All-Star game on in the background. Liam Hendricks is goofy. And I am sad that Julio Rodriguez has been summoned as the next Certified Rangers Punisher, but at least he’s cheery.

Those 41-49 Rangers probably aren’t making the playoffs this year. There were multiple… shoot, a plethora of opportunities to hit .500 and make a push this year. Texas failed and cooled themselves off at nearly every turn. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster of a year, but they couldn’t be in a better spot to make a move like this when it comes to organizational direction. Soto or no Soto (say that five times fast), the Rangers do not need to throw the kitchen sink with the intention of making a playoff run this fall. The team is not ready yet; they lack three, arguably four reliable rotation pieces for the foreseeable future, they are not fully healthy, and two of their biggest offensive producers early on in Kole Calhoun and Adolis Garcia have become non factors at the plate in July.

What Texas does have is a flurry of left-handed bats in their lineup, including scorching shortstop and permanent fixture of new-era Texas baseball, Corey Seager – such a flurry, in fact, that the team ranks fourth in the Majors in left-handed at-bats. Texas slugs phenomenally well through their lefty hitters, leading the American League in hits, home runs, and runs batted in from that side of the plate. They also rank third in the A.L. in left-handed walks drawn. Soto can only bolster these numbers with his production in the box.

The Rangers also have a glaring need to upgrade at the corner outfield spot. The middle infield is set in stone. Nathaniel Lowe, despite some pitiful defensive numbers, has the bat to hold it down at first for a while. One of Jung/Smith/Duran will corner him opposite. Jonah Heim has emerged as one of the best catchers in baseball. Leody Taveras, brimming with confidence and finally ready to serve at the MLB level, should be your everyday centerfielder going forward. This leaves the corner spots to Adolis Garcia and a rotation of Kole Calhoun and Brad Miller, the latter of whom is having a career-low year at the plate by disastrous measurements. Calhoun turns 35 in October, but he’s shown us some stellar highlights with his glove this year.

I have to imagine a Soto trade inevitably involves moving Garcia, because if he stays, Soto is your guy in right. This requires Adolis to make his second positional change in the outfield in two years.

Just like with Semien and Seager, a Soto acquisition lets the Rangers have long-term stability at one specific position, something they have severely lacked in recent years. If Soto chooses that he would rather commit to making it work out with the team he’s known his entire career so far, that’s a completely fair sentiment, but with the Nationals eating some nasty contracts right now in Steven Strasburg and Patrick Corbin, and many pieces of the championship winning team having already departed, it may be a minute before he gets to provide active value to a team, other than simply showing up, being great, and losing at the behest of his teammates and organization. The Rangers are trending upwards. The Nationals are trending downwards. Juan Soto is a Scott Boras client. Scott Boras and the Rangers are two peas in a pod. Money, money, money.

Lastly, if the Rangers do execute a trade for Soto, they’ll be the ones to extend him, and though I am no insider, I would find it outrageous if any team other than Washington would offer him a contract anywhere near 14-15 years. You never know in this day and age of players negotiating salaries higher than the GDP’s of small countries, especially for a Boras client, but the Rangers could probably work their way down to somewhere around 30+ million a year for 10-12 years.

Soto regressing into an albatross would be a downfall of historic proportions. There is no gamble in a contract like that for a player of his caliber, especially if you have set your team up to compete for championships within the next five years. This is a wonderful situation for the Rangers to be in.

The Risk – For Both Juan Soto and the Texas Rangers

The most obvious hesitance towards a Soto-to-Texas deal is that it requires a steep investment. So steep, in fact, that the Texas Rangers would have to dig into one of their healthiest farm systems in decades. Chris Young and Jon Daniels’ partnership as the forefront of Rangers management these last 18 months has been nothing short of an outstanding success.

Despite last year’s hellish tank and a team so close, right on the cusp of contention this season, the moves being made are propelling the team into a new chapter, filled with hope and ambition. Feelings we haven’t had in Arlington towards the long-term future in a *really* long time. Texas has two of the most enticing pitching arms in the country in Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter, both of whom will be pitching in the Majors in less than two full seasons.

They have turned Leody Taveras into not only a serviceable, but confident and productive MLB hitter. They hauled in Josh Smith and Ezequiel Duran, who have both shown flashes of brilliance in their 2022 Rangers debuts, from a Joey Gallo trade that initially left many fans – including myself – somewhat puzzled. They have an MLB-ready bat in Josh Jung, whenever he completes rehabbing his shoulder injury this fall.

Juan Soto means a couple of those guys have to go. Not all, but some. So where does that leave the team? Rhetorically speaking. Sitting idle and waiting for players to develop and then spending all your money once they all flourish means years of more tanking and depleted interest in a losing team. Rushing guys severely hurts their chances of finding stability in the league.

When Texas signed Semien and Seager in November, it wasn’t a desperation move to try to win instantly. That was a strategic strike to lock up two cornerstones of the lineup for the next five to seven years, at least, as the team starts to churn out some of those prospects.

My thoughts? Juan Soto being paired with Semien and Seager, who have both enjoyed punctual resurgences this summer after hefty paydays, makes this offense one of the most potent in the league on paper. The Texas Rangers want to win. In order to win, bad to average teams need to acquire better players. As good as Juan Soto is at hitting baseballs, he’s probably not going to require a package that requires each and every one of the Rangers high-ceiling prospects.

However, I also believe that when players like Soto become available, there is no asking price too high. The Rangers haven’t won a playoff series since the 2011 ALCS. They haven’t won a playoff game since 2015. They haven’t posted a winning season since 2016. I can’t encourage fans enough to get excited about deals like this.

Even if Soto ends up going to Los Angeles or New York or somewhere with much greener pastures, the fact that the Rangers are in a spot to throw their hat into the ring for players as good as Juan Soto, while at the same time continue to construct a team that cares about producing young, homegrown talent alongside proven veterans, is not something that should be taken for granted.