Soto seems like a pipe dream, but the Astros do have some financial flexibility and a surplus from which they can trade. It would also go against everything Click preaches about sustainability and not sacrificing the long-term future for short-term gain. Putting together a package compelling enough to compete with others in the Soto sweepstakes seems almost impossible. The Astros have one consensus Top 100 prospect - righthander Hunter Brown. Seattle has three, and that doesn’t include Jarred Kelenic, once thought of as one of the sport’s best outfield prospects. Tampa Bay has six prospects ranked within Baseball America’s Top 100. Teams like the Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres and Tampa Bay Rays are perhaps even better positioned than Houston, given their stacked farm systems.
The Astros do not have the high-end prospect capital or financial might to compete with the likes of the Dodgers, New York Yankees or New York Mets in pursuit of Soto, who, because he comes with two additional years of club control, could fetch the largest deadline trade haul in baseball history. The numbers point to the 23-year-old Soto's being a generational talent. Twenty-eight other teams should do the same. It would be a dereliction of duty by general manager James Click not to at least make a call to Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo. Juan Soto’s apparent availability will dominate most trade deadline discourse.
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