With the Washington Nationals in town for a three-game series and how well the former Padres players in the Juan Soto trade on the Nationals’ active MLB roster are doing, it’s fun to look back at the What If? had the Padres kept those players and not made the trade.

Here are their stats as of today:

CJ Abrams: 2.7 bWAR, .278/.351/.484 (.835 OPS), 11 HR, 15 SB

James Wood: 3.5 bWAR, .278/.375/.560 (.935 OPS), 21 HR, 57 RBI

MacKenzie Gore: 2.8 bWAR, 3.19 ERA, 3-7 W-L, 123 SOs (leads the league)

Robert Hassell III was called up on May 20, 2025 for the first time and in 79 plate appearances has a slash line of .218/.228/.269 (.497 OPS) while Jarlin Susana is still in the minors.

Of course if the Padres don’t make the trade, there’s always the daisy chain effect as Jackson Merrill might not be here (he might have been traded instead for another player that AJ Preller felt could put the team over the top), they sign or trade differently because of who they have here and other gaps (such as not signing Xander Bogaerts with Abrams as SS), etc. But let’s for fun, assume only the trades directly affected by Juan Soto (such as the trades to get Michael King and lead to getting Dylan Cease) don’t happen, you end up with a starting lineup and pitching rotation of:

Tatis RF
Arraez 1B
Machado 3B
Wood LF
Sheets DH
Merrill CF
Cronenworth/Iglesias 2B
Diaz/Maldonaldo C
Abrams SS

Pivetta
Gore
Bergert
Kolek
Another starter with Darvish and Musgrove on the IL

The first thing that sticks out is how this lineup skews really lefty with six left-handed hitters. There’s already that challenge with Merrill, Sheets, Cronenworth in the middle of the lineup (and Arraez if you want to switch it with yesterday’s lineup where Merrill batted second and Arraez fourth) so this really makes it even more so.

The other thing is the length of this lineup as really the only glaring hole is the catcher position. But having solid players from 1-7 and 9 really goes with the Padres motto of passing the baton along the lineup and how some other teams have that length where every batter is a challenge.

Starting pitching seems to be more of an issue with this lineup; I get it’s been an issue this year with the injuries to Darvish and King but you have to give credit to Vasquez, Kolek and Bergert for how well they’ve been pitching considering being young guys at the back of the rotation.

Besides the fact that the surrounded players signed/traded would be different because of a different approach to roster construction with having these guys around as mentioned above, the other thing is if the Padres don’t make this trade, they don’t get to the NLCS in 2022 or win 93 games in 2024 (since they picked up Michael King and Dylan Cease as a result of trading Soto to the Yankees after the 2023 season).

The ultimate goal is to win the World Series but considering the lack of success in the Padres history, they had legitimate teams these past few seasons to make the playoffs and do something which is what you want as a fan.

So would I still do the trade in hindsight? Yes, because it’s still allowed the team to be competitive since then. Now if the Padres didn’t get anything for Juan Soto when they felt they couldn’t re-sign him, had their payroll/budget concerns after Peter Seidler’s passing and didn’t end up with King, Cease and Vasquez that made them competitive last year and again this year, then I’d have a different opinion.