SAN DIEGO – Jackson Merrill and James Wood were on a bus bound for Visalia in the California League, when the news dropped. Juan Soto was headed to the Padres in a blockbuster trade. And Wood, Merrill’s teammate at Single-A Lake Elsinore and longtime friend dating back to their time playing youth baseball in Maryland? He was headed to the Nationals in that deal.
“We all saw it, and we’re like, ‘Wow, wow, this is crazy,'” Merrill said. “And I’m sitting there, I’m mad. I’m happy for these guys, but I’m mad. I’m like: This is my best friend.”
The business of baseball can be cruel like that.
This week, Wood and the Nationals visit San Diego, where the former Padres second-round pick is slated to play at Petco Park for the first time. Wood and Merrill are two of the most exciting young players in baseball.
With Fernando Tatis Jr. manning right field for the Padres, well, that could’ve been one heck of an outfield. But don’t tell Merrill that.
“I wouldn’t change anything in the past,” Merrill said. “I love our team. He’s having fun over there. We’re having fun over here. That’s all I can ask.”
Rest assured, every time the Nationals come to town for the next few years, the 2022 Soto trade will be relitigated. The Padres surrendered one of the best prospect hauls in baseball history to acquire Soto and Josh Bell at the 2022 Deadline. Those prospects are now mostly thriving big leaguers -- specifically Wood, MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams.
I think that’s fair. It’s fun to play what-if. But it’s worth remembering: Soto was excellent in San Diego. The real sin wasn’t trading for Juan Soto. It was not winning with Juan Soto.
Of course, to the Padres’ credit, they flipped Soto a year before his free agency and landed Michael King and Drew Thorpe, the top prospect who flipped for Dylan Cease.
The Padres, again, are contenders -- with King and Cease at the center of those contention plans. But both are slated to become free agents after the season. Wood, Gore and Abrams will help comprise the Nationals' core for years to come. Jarlin Susana and Robert Hassell III remain among their top prospects.
If you could re-do the trade, knowing what you know now? Of course you undo it. But only because you know how that ill-fated 2023 season went.
I think it’s revisionist history to say the Padres gave up too much. I think they knew precisely what they were giving up.
And, hey, they held onto Merrill, didn’t they? At the time of the deal, Merrill had only just returned from a prolonged absence due to a wrist injury.
“I came back to Lake E for like a week,” Merrill said. “ [Wood] had been going crazy the whole week. I was like: 'I haven’t really played. If they’re going to trade for anyone, it’s probably going to be someone that’s been playing.'”
Earlier this season, after Merrill signed his contract extension, A.J. Preller brought up that summer and those negotiations with the Nationals, who scouted the Padres’ system extensively.
“It just speaks to the strength of the system and what we were able to do, when you can trade for Juan Soto and keep a Jackson Merrill out of that trade,” Preller said in April. “And they still made a great trade. But I think the only time you’re probably happy that a player’s on the injured list was at that time.”
Perhaps more notably: That 2021 Draft was a massive success for a Padres organization that prides itself on its strong draft classes. They took Merrill in the first round at No. 27 overall, then Wood in the second round at No. 62.
If you’re re-drafting that class, there’s a serious case that Merrill and Wood should go 1-2 overall. Not to mention, the Padres also took a flier on Chase Burns in the 20th round. (If Wood didn’t sign, they could’ve pivoted some of their resources to Burns, who ultimately opted to play college baseball at Tennessee and Wake Forest.) He’s now MLB Pipeline’s No. 11 overall prospect, slated to debut for Cincinnati this week.
Oh, and Ryan Bergert, the Padres’ sixth-round pick in that Draft, is in the midst of a breakout rookie season, slated to take the ball Tuesday night. Quite a Draft class -- and it’ll be on full display this week, as Wood brings his 21 homers and .935 OPS to town.
“He’s a beast,” Merrill said. “He’s been a beast since he was 13. It doesn’t surprise me at all.”