2 reasons the San Diego Padres should trade Juan Soto this offseason, 1 reason they should not

The Padres should trade Juan Soto to avoid risking losing him for nothing

Losing Juan Soto for nothing would be a disastrous outcome for the Padres. They're already a team built to win now for the next three to five years at least with all of the contracts on their books, and losing arguably their best player with no way of replacing him would be an awful thing.

The Padres gave away C.J. Abrams, Mackenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III, James Wood, Jarlin Susana, and Luke Voit to acquire Soto and Josh Bell last season. They won't be netting anything close to this kind of a return with Soto on an expiring deal, but the Friars can still net a top prospect or two with some other smaller pieces. Even with him only having one guaranteed year left, it's still Juan Soto we're talking about here.

If the Padres took a trade in exchange for a blue chip prospect and a couple of other smaller pieces, they'd give themselves potentially six or seven years with a future star on team-friendly money, and would also be giving themselves the chance to simply spend money they'd use on Soto on others.

There's no inclanation Soto will extend before he tests the market either forcing the Padres to give him an even larger contract or simply watching him walk out of the door. Imagine he goes ahead and signs with the Los Angeles Dodgers while they get nothing but a compensatory pick. Talk about disaster, that's the ultimate one right there.