The Los Angeles Dodgers had a busy trade deadline as they made five deals overall, but they fell short of acquiring Juan Soto, who instead wound up in the National League West with the San Diego Padres.
Meanwhile, L.A. acquired Joey Gallo from the New York Yankees, along with Chris Martin from the Chicago Cubs, while trading away Mitch White to the Toronto Blue Jays, Garrett Cleavinger to the Tampa Bay Rays and Jake Lamb to the Seattle Mariners.
While there was some growing optimism that the Dodgers would be able to acquire Soto from the Washington Nationals, the 23-year-old superstar was ultimately traded to Padres along with Josh Bell.
Although the Dodgers weren’t able to finalize a deal, they did make an earnest push to complete a Soto trade, according to Jorge Castillo of the L.A. Times:
The Dodgers were finalists for Juan Soto. They "made a solid effort" and offered several top prospects, per source, but the Nationals (obviously) liked the Padres' offer better. There were also a few other clubs involved.
— Jorge Castillo (@jorgecastillo) August 2, 2022
In return for Soto and Bell, the Nationals received MacKenzie Gore and Luke Voit from the Padres’ Major League roster, and multiple top prospects, including C.J. Abrams, Robert Hassell III, James Wood and Jarlin Susana.
Eric Hosmer decided against waiving his no-trade clause to be sent to the Nationals, and instead was traded to the Boston Red Sox.
Friedman declines comment on Soto trade
After the trade deadline passed, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman would not comment on how close the Dodgers got to a Soto trade, but suggested their history of big deals gives an indication of how hard they tried to come to an agreement.
“Obviously it’s hard for me to get into specifics on that,” Friedman said. “I think everyone knows us well enough to know that we’ll be aggressive pursuing different things.
“But out of respect to to Washington, and also San Diego, it’s hard to get into specifics there. But I think our track record would suggest that obviously we would have been aggressive in trying to figure something out.”
Over the past few years, Friedman and the Dodgers have acquired superstars Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, Trea Turner, Max Scherzer and Manny Machado in either free agency or via trade.
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