What if what you see isn’t real? Really, what if it’s true that reality is stranger than fiction? A top analyst believes that Juan Soto’s free agency isn’t what it looks like. To a common person, Soto’s $600 million free agency looks like a New York affair. The New York Yankees and Mets are his top competitors. Yes, there could be the Toronto Blue Jays and others in the mix, but chiefly, it’s the Big Apple teams. But what if there’s a dark horse by the name of the Washington Nationals waiting in the wings?

Imagine the story: the prodigal son (Juan Soto in this instance) makes his way back to his original home. Is the childish Bambino returning to the place that first made him a superstar? But how is it possible? Well, top MLB Network analyst Mark DeRosa has just given the perfect scenario for this to happen. It does look crazy, but then, to DeRosa, it makes sense. Especially because the stars are seemingly aligning at a rapid rate.

According to DeRosa, while the Nationals had offered a 15-year, $440 million extension to Soto, they knew he wouldn’t accept it. What if they just put it out there to increase his value? But why would the Nats do that? So that they “trade him to San Diego and totally rebuild, not our farm system, our big league team,” DeRosa said. The Nats had received Luke Voit, CJ Abrams, James Wood, Robert Hassell III, Mackenzie Gore, and Jarlin Susana for Soto and Josh Bell. As one knows, most of those players have developed into stars in their own right. But how does this connect to Soto’s free agency?

“If you love someone, you set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours forever,” DeRosa said. The analyst then said that the Nationals set Juan Soto free just to rebuild a team with potential. Now that they have a brighter future, they can go ahead and invest big in the Dominican slugger. In a way, DeRosa considers the Nationals’ President Mike Rizzo a “Master Manipulator,” who might have staged a long game to improve the Nats. It’s quite a scenario, isn’t it? But then, that doesn’t mean the Mets and the Yankees are out of the picture.

The New York Yankees won’t pay for Juan Soto

In his recent writeup, The New York Post’s Jon Heyman categorically rejected the idea that the Yankees won’t pay for Juan Soto. Recently, speculation has risen that the Bronx Bombers might not want to pay Soto more than Aaron Judge. However, according to Heyman, that cannot be farther from the truth. “Judge also doesn’t care much about money and gets the importance of Soto for the team,” Heyman said. He also noted how Juan Soto’s young age (25 right now) pretty much guarantees that he’d get a big deal.

In a similar vein, top analysts have consistently claimed that Scott Boras wouldn’t accept anything less than a $600 million offer for Juan Soto. As of now, only the New York Yankees and the New York Mets seem capable of it. Yes, the Los Angeles Dodgers have just spent a billion in the previous offseason, but will Soto want to go back to the West Coast? That is a big question. But while there are a lot of avenues, Mark DeRosa’s Washington Nationals scenario sure sounds interesting.

What do you think? Could this wild speculation turn into a reality? Could DeRosa’s strange fiction turn into an even stranger reality? It certainly would be an interesting situation. A twist that only Shyamalan can write.