Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post spends other peoples’ money. He writes that the Nationals should offer Juan Soto a $500 million dollar deal for fifteen years:

So don’t waste anyone’s time by lowballing your organization’s central figure. Don’t make this a tedious, tortuous process by tethering his contract to anything that exists — not the 12-year, $365 million deal the Los Angeles Dodgers gave to Mookie Betts; not the 14-year, $340 million extension Fernando Tatis Jr. signed with San Diego. If Soto is a generational player — which he is — make him a generational offer. That’s smart business and smart baseball. But it’s also smart strategy, because if Soto and Boras turn it down, well, what more could the Nats have done?

WashingtonPost.com

I agree with Svrluga, but I would do $400 million for ten years, then let someone else for Soto’s decline. I tend to care more about the average value of a contract, since that tends to set the price for free agents. This would bring him close to Tevor Bauer’s average value without Soto hitting free agency. It’s also going to be tough for anyone to top that value, since Soto could wind up being the best player in baseball for that period. It’s like when Alex Rodriguez signed an oversized deal; no one was going to come close to that since no one was anywhere near Rodriguez in terms of talent.

The Nationals, however, as we saw with Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon, and Trea Turner, tend to reap the rewards of the player’s youth and let others pay for the decline. Atlanta did the same thing in the 1990s. Washington need to prove they can keep the pipeline of talent flowing for that to work.