The Diamondbacks' young talent could put them in play for Juan Soto, but does it make sense?

When the season’s second half begins on Friday, the Diamondbacks will get a fresh look at the best player available — shockingly — on the trade market: Washington Nationals superstar Juan Soto.

Wherever he goes, Soto figures to change the landscape dramatically, both for the acquiring club and the teams surrounding that club. He could turn a fringe contender into a scary opponent. Soto is that good.

It's not often a player as young (23) and gifted as Soto, with 2½ years to go before free agency, gets traded. Given the rarified nature of the situation, it seems like a good time for every team to ask: Should we make a run at him? And can we land him even if we did?

For the Diamondbacks, the answer to the first question is probably not. As for the second question, the answer is a little less clear, but if they did have the inventory to land him, this much seems obvious: it would hurt.

But back to the first question. The Diamondbacks have to ask if the time is right to push in all their chips. This is an especially important question for this franchise to ask, particularly since it has answered it incorrectly three times in the past 15 years.

In 2007, they thought their young core of recently arrived position players was ready to take off. They made a big move for pitcher Dan Haren. They missed the playoffs the next three years.

In 2011, they surprised baseball with a 94-win season. For the next couple of years, they tried adding to that group, peeling away valuable prospects in the process. They produced consecutive .500 teams.

Then in 2016, after making big moves to land Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller, they bottomed out again.

In a sense, acquiring Soto now would be the most Diamondbacks thing they could do. They are no better off now than they were on those previous three occasions. They might even be worse off. They are on a 70-win pace — an improvement upon last year, sure, but there is no reason to think the Diamondbacks are one superstar away from a possible championship run.

“I think the Diamondbacks finish third (in the National League West) with Juan Soto,” an evaluator with an American League club said.

That seems especially likely when considering what it would take to get him. You know all those prospects the Diamondbacks have been drafting and developing the past several years? A Soto trade would probably mean moving two of them. Plus another two. And maybe one more.

A good baseline for a Soto return is at least one major league-ready prospect — or a major leaguer with five or so years of club control left — plus three more well regarded prospects, one or two of whom reside high up on Baseball America’s Top 100 list.

For the Diamondbacks, that would mean trading, say, outfielder Alek Thomas as the major league-ready piece, along with shortstop Jordan Lawlar and two other good prospects, like pitchers Brandon Pfaadt and Blake Walston.

“I just think the way the organization is set up, they’re in a difficult position to begin with, but then to move forward before the window has opened and put all the chips on one player is a bad gamble,” a scout with a National League club said.

That same scout noted that the the Diamondbacks and Nationals do not tend to gravitate toward the same type of players. Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo prefers big, physical players; the Diamondbacks have a number of undersized positions players, both in the majors and throughout their minor league system. As such, the scout wondered if the Nationals wouldn’t prefer a prospect package offered by a different team.

The reason Soto is believed to be available in the first place is because negotiations between he and the Nationals on a long-term deal have stalled, with Soto reportedly turning down a 15-year, $440-million offer. Many believe he and his agent, Scott Boras, are determined to take their chances on the open market when he becomes a free agent after the 2024 season.

Of course, there would be nothing stopping an acquiring team from trying to sign him before that, but considering he already turned down an astronomical amount, the kind of deal he is seeking figures to be record-smashing.

Which, as the Diamondbacks know from experience, is not in their best interest. Back in 2016, they gave Greinke a deal that paid him an average of $34.4 million a year, which at the time was the highest average annual value in baseball history. They proceeded to struggle to field a winning team with one player absorbing more than 30 percent of their payroll.

The Diamondbacks’ payroll hasn’t grown much in that time, so the idea of paying Soto something approaching $40 million a year would make it essential to surround him with young, cost-controlled players — that is, the type of players they would be trading away to acquire him in the first place.

“It’s almost like the NFL quarterback analogy,” the AL evaluator said. “When they get too expensive, then you can’t win.”

There are arguments to be made to acquire Soto. For one, they would be acquiring a player who might be his generation’s Ted Williams. The Diamondbacks instantly would become more interesting, more watchable, more entertaining and better.

Maybe things come together and they make a push for a playoff spot over the next two years. If not, they could put him back on the trade market and get what they can for him. They almost certainly would not get as much back as they would have to pay to get him, but perhaps they would view that tradeoff was worth the cost of enjoying a period of time with perhaps the best hitter in baseball on their team.

The Diamondbacks also could believe their prospects are overhyped — and that they would be best served getting legitimate value for them now rather than letting them stall out once they reach the majors.

But, more than likely, those arguments are outweighed by the cold reality: The time just isn’t right for the Diamondbacks. More than likely, that sort of push will come from a club that has a chance to win a World Series in the next couple of years — and one that might even be able to flex the sort of financial muscle required to extend him.

Reach Piecoro at (602) 444-8680 or nick.piecoro@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickpiecoro.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why a Juan Soto trade doesn’t make sense for Arizona Diamondbacks