BCB After Dark: Will the Cubs make a move for Juan Soto?

Your late week late night spot to enjoy baseball and music with the beverage of your choice

It’s World Series Eve here at BCB After Dark and we’re bringing you full weeknight late-night coverage for the first time! Welcome to your Thursday edition of BCB After Dark, where you’ll get the same low-key hang out and excellent baseball conversation. I’m so grateful to Josh for sharing his digs for a couple new twists on a BCB classic. Every Thursday and Friday we’ll be ending the week here with some indie coffee shop baseball vibes.

A little more than 20 years ago I was introduced to a wonderful corner of Adams Morgan in Washington, D.C. called Tryst, an eclectic coffee shop and bar where the food was amazing and guests could enjoy the standard coffee staples or libation of their choice with a bit of music. That’s the inspiration for this little corner of Cubslandia, and I’m excited to expand the wonderful franchise Josh has built up to a full week of late night banter for those of us who are a bit more nocturnal for whatever reason. Please bus your own tables, I’d hate to leave a mess for Josh on Monday.

Thursdays we’ll chat about standard baseball queries with a bit of a Cubs focus, like tonight’s wistful dream for a Cubs team that would sign a generational star like Juan Soto. Fridays will be a fantasy baseball focus to prepare for drafts and eventually weekend FAAB bids during the season. It’s a coffee shop, though, and we’re low-key, so every now and again we might change it up.

That said, tonight’s question seemed to ask itself as we stand on the verge of a juggernaut of a World Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers that is sure to enthrall the media as much as it annoys almost everyone else. As of the publication of this piece current Yankees megastar, and soon to be free agent, Juan Soto is 26 years old (¡feliz cumpleaños!).

The man many baseball observers see as the reincarnation of Ted Williams is a free agent at the end of this World Series and the cost to add him to any team, including the Cubs, is sky high. Before we explore whether the Cubs will pay that cost, however…

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I truly planned on starting this musical section with one of any number of fantastic coffee house jams, remixes, and indie classics. There are a lot and I’m going to dive in as we move forward, I promise. But you only have the second coming of Ted Williams turning 26 on the same day as Game 1 of the World Series every blue moon and it sent me down a very different rabbit hole instead. I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I did.

Juan Soto has three walk-up songs in New York. One is Empire State of Mind (great pick, 10/10, no notes). But the other two lean heavily into his Dominican roots with “Yo Soy Dominicano” and “Esa Muchacho” and honestly had me wondering how I should wish the superstar “happy birthday” in a way that would evoke home?

The thing about “Happy Birthday” is there are lots of riffs on the song we sing in America that use different words. I found this “Cumpleaños Feliz” riff that will surely sound familiar to most of you:

A friend who is fluent in French confirmed that “Joyeux Anniversaire” in the same tune is the French version.

But it’s not all alternate words for what we think of as the Happy Birthday song, take for example the Mexican mariachi variation, “Las Mañanitas” which was the answer I got from Latino friends when I asked them to help me narrow down the song. However, that didn’t seem right either. I know better than to assume they sing the same songs in the Dominican Republic that they sing in Mexico.

Which led me to a Dominican cooking blog and this nugget sharing that the uniquely Dominican birthday song is “El Regalo Mejor” (the best gift):

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Which brings us back to baseball and has there ever been a gift like Juan Soto?

Juan Soto is absurd. He came up as a 19-year-old and led the Nationals to a World Series the following year. He wasn’t able to legally participate in all of the post-game celebrations, but he was able to do this:

He’s an unbelievable talent. Soto has played in seven MLB seasons. He has a World Series ring, four All Star appearances, four Silver Slugger awards and he won the home run derby. He also has a career slashline of .285/.421/.532. For those of you doing math right now, that is a career slashline with an OPS of .953 in 4,088 plate appearances. At 26. It’s bonkers. And it’s almost stunning to write this, but Soto risks getting overshadowed in this World Series with the battle of two MVPs as Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge try to outperform each other on baseball’s grandest stage.

But only Soto has a contract year ahead of him. That’s right. Any team in baseball can attempt to woo a 26-year-old phenom who did this at age 22 and literally all you have to have is money and a credible path to postseason success for a chance:

The Cubs are sure to be “connected” to Juan Soto in the offseason. They are sure to be “in talks” about Soto heading to the North Side of Chicago. But do any of us really believe we live in a world where the Cubs could put together an offer to sign Soto?

To be clear, the Cubs should be all over this. Wrigley Field is a shrine and the Cubs are a marquee franchise. They can and should spend money like the Dodgers, Yankees and Phillies. But somehow the largest contract in the history of the franchise is Jason Heyward’s $184 million, eight year deal, and well, believe me when I tell you that’s going to fall just a smidge short.

Soto is expected to sign a monster deal. He turned down a 15-year/$440 million deal from the Nationals before they traded him to the Padres (basically stocking 70 percent of their rebuild in the process). Ironically, the Nationals now seem to be one of the teams primed to sign Soto long-term — after they flipped him for prospects that have them on the cusp of another run. Perhaps Jed Hoyer should take Mike Rizzo out to lunch and take some notes.

In 2021, Barry Svlurga of the Washington Post made the case that Soto deserved a $500 million contract offer from the Nationals. Admittedly, that was 23-year old Soto, not 26-year old Soto, however inflation is real, and now the Washington Post projects a $600 million deal for fewer years of the star hitter.

The Cubs were one of the last teams standing in the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes, but by most accounts they were far behind the Dodgers, despite a franchise obliterating offer rumored to top out at $600 million after incentives.

The Cubs making a move for Soto is also complicated by having both corner outfield positions manned by above average (but certainly not Soto-level) players in Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki, both of whom have no-trade clauses.

And yet, on the on the eve of the World Series it’s fun to dream. Despite the handwringing that comes out of the office building at the corner of Clark and Waveland, or the Twitterati (X-erati just doesn’t have the same ring to it) who are very concerned about the Ricketts’ pocketbooks, the Cubs can afford a big swing for a generational talent like Soto. The only question is are the people in charge of making that decision capable of a move that bold?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments and be sure you come back tomorrow for some way too early fantasy baseball draft takes. They’ll go perfectly with whatever draft you’re drinking on Friday night.