Juan Soto had spent his whole career basking in the spotlight, and at first, this felt no differently.
He loved the attention when he was demolishing the majors at age 19. He loved it when he hit three World Series home runs for the Nationals in 2019. He loved it when the cameras zoomed in on him as he added increasingly intricate gestures to the dance he does after taking a close pitch, the Soto Shuffle, and as he debuted a necklace last spring bearing a diamond-encrusted version of himself doing it. So when he again became the talk of the sport last July, this time for turning down a record $440 million, 15-year offer to spend the rest of his career in Washington, he expected he would enjoy that attention, too.
And he did, for a while. The day after The Athletic reported he had rejected the deal and the Nationals would consider trading him, Soto flew to Los Angeles for the All-Star Game. He arrived eight minutes early for his scheduled media availability and spent an hour grinning and bantering with reporters. He won the Home Run Derby that night. But the longer the circus went on, the less he felt like the ringmaster.
“I love this game,” he says nine months later, sitting in the Padres’ dugout with San Diego across his chest. “I play this game because I love it. I know the money is helping me out and all this stuff, but the first thing I do is play the game I love. And there were some days when I felt like it wasn’t fun anymore.” He adds, “You just want to go home.”
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Now, he insists, he is having fun again. He feels comfortable in San Diego. He has struggled at the plate since the Nationals dealt him to the Padres for a record haul at the August trade deadline, with a .766 Padres OPS that is 200 points below his career total in Washington, but he says he believes he is close to breaking through. At 24, he has two more seasons until free agency, but he says he is not focused on the future—or the past. But as he looks back at the period surrounding the trade deadline, his voice goes soft.
Those weeks were among the hardest of his baseball career. He was able to lock in on baseball while at the plate, but standing in the outfield, he could not help but hear the jeers. Much worse was the response from people close to him.
The news that he had rejected nearly half a billion dollars pitted “all the fans, all the Dominicans, even my family against me,” he says. He felt completely overwhelmed as he tried to navigate their skepticism. “A lot of teammates were like, ‘We respect your thinking, but that’s a lot of money,’” he says. “I’m like, ‘Guys, I’m trying to do what’s best for me and what’s best for my family.’ And you gotta go out there and perform. And you try to perform for guys that doubt you. And that’s one of the things I hated.” Some of his relatives still do not understand, he says. They have agreed not to bring it up.
Once the news broke he wouldn’t sign the extension with the Nationals, he began preparing himself for a trade. But when it came—to the Padres the morning of the deadline—that too was harder than he expected.
“At the beginning, I was like, ‘If they trade me, they trade me. It is what it is,’” he says. “But it really hurts when you really see the reality.”
He spent much of that morning in tears, he says. His teammates tried to comfort him. DH Nelson Cruz, now reunited with Soto in San Diego, has played for eight teams and in 2021 was himself the subject of a midseason swap from an underperforming Twins team to a Rays club with title aspirations. He says he tried to remind Soto he was moving from a last-place team to a contender. “You’re gonna go to a better spot,” Cruz insisted.
But it was with the Nationals that Soto signed as a 16-year-old, his $1.5 million bonus helping his parents move to a better part of Santo Domingo. It was with the Nationals that he ascended from Class A to the major leagues in 27 days in 2018. It was with the Nationals he compiled some of the most incredible statistics this side of Ted Williams, and it was with the Nationals that he won the World Series in ’19. He could not imagine a better spot.
One new Padres teammate, third baseman Manny Machado, understands. The Orioles selected him with the third pick of the 2010 draft out of high school, but then, en route to a 115–loss season in ’18, traded him to the Dodgers during a chaotic trade deadline.
“I don’t think people realize how hard it is,” Machado says. “You’re changing everything.” He adds, “As much as you want it, it hurts, at the end of the day. You really don’t want to leave.”
Soto’s new teammates noticed the challenges immediately. Outfielder José Azocar befriended him quickly and often reminded him, “Just let the game be.” Azocar is himself not quite 27, but because he is married with three children and was never a top prospect, he offers a different perspective. “He used to be with the Nationals,” he says. “I don’t want to say it was a bad team, but it’s different. You come to San Diego; it’s California, a lot of people, a lot of media, everybody’s talking about you.”
Soto’s anxiety finally began to give way 10 days after the trade, when the Padres played at Nationals Park, and fans greeted him with a standing ovation. “I really felt relieved,” he says. “I could leave that in the past and focus on Cali.”
At the moment, that means working through a swing that has him hitting .172 to start the season. His slump has left other teams’ broadcasters dissecting his stroke on air, and he has professed exasperation with others’ attempts to diagnose him. He knows what is wrong, he says: He is pulling the ball too much. Pitches he should line over the shortstop’s head he instead rolls harmlessly to the right side.
He felt good in spring training, he says, and at the World Baseball Classic, in which he went 6-for-15 with three doubles and two home runs for the Dominican Republic, but he sustained a mild strain of his left oblique during an at bat in a B game when he returned to camp. The Padres believe his rush to get back into shape in the eight days before Opening Day may have messed with his swing.
He has tweaked some mechanics, dropping his hands and doing drills in which assistant hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh pitches to him from almost a 90-degree angle so Soto can feel himself staying through the ball.
Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated
“I don’t want to give you all the details,” Soto says. “A lot of pitchers [read] this stuff.”
The Padres say they are confident Soto will regain his previous form, which leads to another question: If they make an extension offer that beats the Nationals’, would he stay? Soto’s agent, Scott Boras, says San Diego has not made an offer. He adds he does not take its lack of overture to mean Soto is not a priority.
“Just because you have all the ingredients, when you have the oven sitting there for two years, it doesn’t mean you have to bake the cake today,” Boras says.
At the All-Star Game last year, I asked Soto whether he would, going forward, consider refusing to negotiate in season, as some players do. He said he would. I asked him again last week.
“I wanted to do it with the Nationals, but they just made it public,” he says. “I didn’t like that at all. I hated it. I told them we weren’t speaking anymore, because they just threw everything out there. If [the Padres can keep negotiations private], I can do it any time. I have no problem with it.”
Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo did not return a request for comment, but he has previously denied the team leaked the terms of the offer.
In any case, Soto rejected it, and that decision has affected nearly every element of his life since. Given all that has transpired in the past nine months, does he still believe he made the right decision?
His tone shifts. “I feel great right now,” he says brightly. “Forget about all this stuff. Now I’m focused on the San Diego Padres.” Then he strides back to the clubhouse to prepare to face the Mets. It’s a night game. The lights are on.
