Davey Martinez got emotional and a bit nostalgic when he spoke with reporters in the immediate aftermath of the club’s franchise-altering trade of Juan Soto (and Josh Bell) to the San Diego Padres at the deadline this past August 2nd.
Considering the fact that Soto debuted in the majors in 2018, in Martinez’s first season on the bench as the manager in the nation’s capital, and that they won a World Series together in 2019, you can understand the feelings Martinez had to deal with when the then-22, now-23-year-old Soto was actually traded (along with Bell) in a blockbuster deal which brought back five high-end prospects from the Padres’ system [CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III, James Wood, and Jarlin Susana], and a major league bat [Luke Voit].