The National League OPS leaderboard is doing something Padres fans probably did not ask for: reopening the Juan Soto trade in the most painful way possible.
At the top sits James Wood at .953. Right behind him is Juan Soto at .947.
Then comes CJ Abrams at .940. That is not just a tidy statistical snapshot.
It is a direct line back to San Diego’s massive 2022 deal with Washington, and it lands like a fresh bruise.
The Padres sent Abrams, Wood, MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III, Jarlin Susana and Luke Voit to the Nationals for Soto and Josh Bell. Soto spent the next season and a half in San Diego before the rest of the story played out: Yankees, then the Mets.
Seeing Soto near the top of the list would be enough on its own. Seeing Wood and Abrams right there with him makes it sting even more.
Wood is 23 and Abrams is 25, and both were Nationals representatives at the 2026 All-Star Game. Both have grown into real middle-of-the-order bats.
That matters, because it keeps this from turning into lazy hindsight. The Padres did get something from Soto.
He helped them reach the 2022 NLCS. He brought superstar impact to the lineup, the kind that can take over an at-bat and change the feel of a game.
He was also excellent during a rough 2023 season that had bigger problems than him. And when San Diego eventually moved him to New York, the return included real value, with Michael King leading the package.
Still, none of that changes the shape of the bigger picture. The Padres pushed in their best prospect capital, got one of baseball’s elite hitters, and never made it to the World Series. That was the whole reason for paying such a steep price.
Instead, Wood and Abrams are thriving in Washington while Soto keeps doing what Soto does: producing offense at an absurd level, even with one of the sport’s most stubborn strike-zone approaches. It is easy to imagine what all three might look like together now. But that was never the deal.
The reality is harsher. San Diego gave up two young stars to get Soto, then hit a financial wall and had to move him before free agency. Four years later, those same three players sit atop the NL OPS leaderboard.
That is the bill for chasing a title and not getting one.
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