MLB Rumors: 17 MLB Execs & GMs Predict Juan Soto Landing Spot

Just about every team in baseball is envisioning having Juan Soto in their lineup. With the Washington Nationals holding trade discussions around the 23-year-old superstar with front offices all over MLB, who better to gauge the Juan Soto market than those executives themselves.

MLB.com polled 17 GM and Front Office types around the sport, to see where they thought Soto would wind up. And according to the ballots, the San Diego Padres hold a slim lead. The full list of voting—each exec checked off their Top 3 teams most likely to land Soto—looks like this:

San Diego Padres 8
Los Angeles Dodgers 7
St. Louis Cardinals 3
Seattle Mariners 3
New York Mets 3
Tampa Bay Rays 3
New York Yankees 3
San Francisco Giants 2
Toronto Blue Jays
Milwaukee Brewers
Chicago Cubs
Texas Rangers
Boston Red Sox

The Padres and their NL West rivals, the Dodgers, seem to have some distance from the pack, as far as the perceived leaders in the Soto Sweepstakes. Both teams have a plethora of top prospects they could send. 

We've already speculated on the trade package the Padres could send, as well as the combination of young prospects the Dodgers could send Washington's way.

The St. Louis Cardinals are in the next tier, and they should be, as their combination includes a number of young stars with major league experience already, and their prospect list is about as strong as it gets. 

But the fact that there are 13 teams that received votes tells us that this is still a wide-open contest. “I think every team would put him in the middle of their lineup,” one NL GM said. “It just depends who feels they need him the most.”

Bottom line, do those execs think Soto will be dealt by the Aug. 2nd trade deadline? That one is up in the air as well, with 15 voting on that question, and 8 saying 'yes', 7 voting 'no'.

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports