SUNDAY: Soto’s promotion is now official. To make room for him on its roster, Washington designated Sierra for assignment and optioned righty Jefry Rodriguez to Double-A. Sierra, 29, signed a minor league deal with the Nationals during the offseason. He went on to amass 60 PAs with the Nats and bat .167/.217/.204 prior to his designation.
SATURDAY: The Nationals will promote outfield prospect Juan Soto, Byron Kerr of MASNsports.com tweets. Soto will join the Nats on Sunday, Kerr adds. Given that Washington’s 40-man roster is at capacity, it’ll need to make a corresponding move to create a spot for Soto.
The 19-year-old Soto is one of the game’s most exciting prospects and will immediately become the majors’ youngest player, though his promotion comes under unfortunate circumstances for the Nationals. The club has been dealing with a spate of injuries in the outfield, where Adam Eaton, Brian Goodwin and high-end prospect Victor Robles have missed most of this season, and Howie Kendrick will sit out the rest of it after suffering a ruptured Achilles on Saturday. Moreover, the Nats lost minor leaguer/40-man option Rafael Bautista to a season-ending knee injury earlier this week.
Now, thanks in part to the hits the Nats’ depth has taken, Soto is set to join a Bryce Harper-fronted outfield alignment whose other 25-man choices at the moment include Michael A. Taylor, Matt Adams, Moises Sierra and Andrew Stevenson. It has been a meteoric rise for the Dominican-born Soto, who signed with the Nationals as a 16-year-old in 2015. Soto was among the most highly regarded players available in that year’s international class, and the $1.5MM he received represented the biggest bonus the Nats had given to a Latin American teenager at the time.
Since immigrating to the United States, the lefty-swinging Soto has paid back the Nats by running roughshod over minor league pitching. Dating back to his minors debut in 2016, he owns a tremendous .361/.433/.608 batting line across 508 plate appearances. Soto has racked up 178 of those trips this year among the Single-A, High-A and Double-A levels, though only 31 came with the latter affiliate prior to his promotion. He was hardly overmatched during that small sample of work, however, evidenced by his .296/.387/.556 slash.
Judging by his history, Soto will emerge as an offensive centerpiece in Washington either this season or down the line. He’s also a capable corner outfielder, notes MLB.com, which ranks him as the game’s 15th-best prospect. While Soto has spent the majority of his pro career in right field, Harper figures to man that spot in D.C. at least through this season. As such, Soto seems likely to line up in left for the Nats, who have gotten off to a respectable start (24-20) but could use a boost if they’re going to overcome the Braves and Phillies en route to a third straight NL East crown.
Oh hell yeah
What?
MLB TR updates keep me ahead in fantasy baseball
Just picked him up in all 3 of my leagues lol.
for real, im gonna pick him up on monday
Wow
too early
they dont have any outfielders left in AAA, they all in majors or injured
Told ya this phenom was on the way, but still faster than I thought.
with kendrick injured now nats only have andrew stevenson, moises sierra, micheal a taylor and harper the outfielders on 40 man roster.
they dont have anyone left in AAA
I had hoped this would happen too….now if only teams learnt that letting prospects marinate in the minors for too long accomplishes nothing other than forcing their fans to watch sub-par placeholders.
“now if only teams learnt that letting prospects marinate in the minors for too long accomplished nothing . . .”
That really isn’t true, j-t. Teams have a limited number of years of control. It isn’t irrational for a team to choose for those controlled mlb years to take place as close to the player’s prime as possible.
By bringing Soto up at 19 (like Harper) they will lose control over him at 26 (also like Harper). The Nats are trading his age 27 season for his age 19 season, out of necessity, not preference.
“ . . . other than forcing their fans to watch sub-par placeholders.”
Depends on where the team’s talent cycle is. If bringing player X up won’t make your team a playoff contender then why spend that year of control now rather than later when there will (presumably) be more talent around him.
The Nats would have preferred to delay this by a year. Going into this season it appeared they were well stocked with mlb capable OFers, not “sub-par placeholders”. Barring the type of injury pandemic that hit them it would have made sense to let Soto finish the milb season at AA/AAA and bank his age 26 season for down the road. Maybe even wait until next year’s “super two” deadline passes as well. Might not be best for the player but completely rational from the team’s POV.
CaseysPartner……..You also said “The day Scott Kingery is rostered on the 25 man is the day he is the Phillies best player. Kingery will continue to be the Phillies best player until next winter when they sign Harper and Machado.” mlbtraderumors.com/2018/03/nl-east-notes-nationals…
219/268/344. Odúbel Herrera, 353/420/558 would like to have a word.
What on earth
Robles injury led to this, he should have been the one getting the call if healthy. Let’s see what Soto can do as a teenager. 50/50 imo for this year. Might be too early but injuries forced the nate hand
Guess there’s no love for Stevenson, who might not have Soto’s ceiling (few do), but I think would do a decent enough job. But what the heck, Rizzo doesn’t goof often…….
Stevenson will still see plenty of time, it’s Sierra who won’t be on the field much.
3 guys including Robles on 7 day DL. Yadier Hernandez is in Triple-A.
Way to soon, nats know how to ruin prospects.
Example please?
please fill in us with your genius… what prospects did they ruin? LOL
The Nationals are taking a big risk by promoting Soto. He only has 8 games in AA. By comparison, Harper had 37 games in AA in 2011 & 21 games in 2012 before being promoted to the Nationals. Acuna played 71 games in AAA before being called up to the Braves. Still, the Nats don’t have a lot of options at the moment & probably feel his upside is a better option than the other possibilities. They will likely have to shelter him some though because he probably isn’t ready to face big league pitching every day.
Looks like the nats are taking a page from the braves “promote young talent regardless of age” book. Looks like a fun player to watch
For the most part, seems to be working out well for Atlanta.
Soto going to be a star. Was hoping he had been part of deal instead of Giolito as WSox fan. Thought he was a call-up for Nats 2019 earliest regardless of any rash of injuries, but no shock if he is the rare talent who asserts his presence very young.
Same here. I would’ve happily just taken him and Dunning or Lopez.
He looks like a potential star, and quite frankly, I think the prospect rankings were way too slow at recognizing it. I couldn’t believe Baseball Prospectus was the only one that had him in the top 100 before the 2017 season. Thought he could be a gigantic steal for the Sox. Hoping for the best for him.
Really hope teams start doing this more, leaving players in the minors who are clearly ready for the bigs due to age bias is such a dumb old school level of thinking it really needs to go away – these guys have been playing ball since they were like 5 years old, they know what they’re doing and if they are showing that the competition is too weak for them at AA then they could all easily be at least slightly above replacement level MLB players, which is also more exciting for the fans and teammates to see, rather than have some 30 year old total AAAA scrub wasting everyones time hitting into double plays and making errors and generally making their team lose games by being bad.
Love the “full circle” aspect of this too, because Harper came up at 19 and it might be his least year there. LETS GO SOTO – FREE ALL BLUE CHIP PROSPECTS
Prospects need time to develop to maximize their abilities. Sure, basically all blue chip prospects are good enough for the big leagues when they are 19, but they likely will struggle since they haven’t had enough time to fully develop. Harper, obviously, was an example of a rare exception. It’s not a matter of whether they know what they are doing or not, most high school players do. Soto has played 18 games above Single-A, he will be a solid mlb player now sure, but he needs another year or two before he will make a big impact. The nationals didn’t want to promote Soto this early but were forced to.
All 30 teams agree with this philosophy, and wait till prospects have enough time to develop into the player they are capable of becoming.
What you say is generally correct but there have been a few exceptions of extraordinary talent that have defied that philosophy in the past 50 years including HOF SS/CF Robin Yount who was 18 when he made his MLB debut in 1974. Alex Rodriguez matched that accomplishment at SS with the Mariners 20 years after Yount accomplished the feat with the Brewers.
Rodriguez also had an eventual HOF Seattle teammate in CF Ken Griffey Jr. who made his MLB debut at 19 in 1989. And of course Juan Soto’s new teammate Bryce Harper matched that achievement at 19 in the LF with the Nationals back in 2012.
Here’s hoping that Soto can approach the careers of all those mentioned here.
Btw-Some guy named Mike Trout also made his MLB debut at 19 in CF for the Angels way back in 2011. lol
look at the list of players who have been called up by 19… not too many failures in that list
You say or read it fast enough I keep on thinking the Nationals are promoting Han Solo
A 19 year old in the majors? inconceivable
Robin Yount was only 18 when he was the starting SS for the Brewers!
Robin Yount accomplished that rare feat in 1974. Twenty years later Alex Rodriguez duplicated that achievement with the Seattle Mariners.
That’s good
Best of luck to Juan Soto in his MLB debut. It’s refreshing to see a talented 19-year old get an opportunity, much like his teammate Bryce Harper was given back in 2012.
If the Nationals can promote a 19-year old outfielder with only 8 games and 35 PA’s at the AA level the White Sox can certainly do the same with 21-year old Eloy Jimenez. Whereas Soto would hardly be considered among the best hitters in Washington at this point in time, Jimenez would be better than anybody on the current White Sox roster not named Jose Abreu.
As soon as the deadline for 2018 Super Two status passes within the next few weeks, the White Sox ought to seriously consider promoting Jimenez who is currently raking at AA Birmingham. The White Sox might be wise to let Jimenez get a few PA’s at AAA up until that deadline but he also appears to be one of those rare hitters who could probably make the jump from AA and into the big leagues without skipping a beat.
Jimenez does have a sufficient arm to man RF but will likely be the White Sox future LF with his lack of range. He may not be the best defensive outfielder but I guarantee you he already trumps injured Nicky Delmonico and recent call-up Daniel Palka in LF, to say nothing of Melka Cabrera who “played” the position from 2015 through 2017.
Yes, Eloy will be up soon enough after the magic dates pass. He and Soto are a couple guys who seem born to hit. My head spins now (and before Eloy trade went down) thinking could Hahn have landed Soto in the Eaton deal where they had both studs instead of one of extra Nats pitchers they wound up getting. OF prospects were weak in WSox system at time of that particular trade. Want to believe Rizzo shot down any mention of Soto besides Robles to be prepared for them not having Harper beyond 2018.
Yes. Most White Sox fans were already familiar with Victor Robles as an elite OF prospect who was definitely taken off the table by the Nationals in any proposed Adam Eaton trade. Not sure about Soto’s status as trade fodder at the time but I don’t think the White Sox are crying about their return of Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning who all figure to have important roles on the future White Sox pitching staff come 2020.
Perhaps Eaton can regain enough health to actually impact the Nationals in 2018 before he, Robles or Soto replace Harper in RF next season. lol
Doesn’t appear that Mr. Soto intends on returning to the minors.