One of the more notable non-lockout headlines in the world of baseball in the past weeks centered on the future of Juan Soto with the Washington Nationals.

The one-time All-Star confirmed to ESPN that he turned down a 13-year, $350 million extension offer from the Nationals ahead of the lockout. He explained that while he aspires to stay put with the Nationals for the remainder of his career, he has an aim to wait for his free agency period in a few years.

“Yes, they made me an offer a few months ago, before the lockout,” Soto told ESPN. “But right now, my agents and I think the best option is to go year by year and wait for free agency… Anyway, I still think of Washington as the place where I would like to spend the rest of my career, so we will see.”

As it stands, Soto is under team control with the Nationals for three more seasons, including the 2022 campaign.

Now-former Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman is far from surprised that Soto declined Washington's mega-contract offer, which would have then ranked him at 17th in all of MLB today per a $26.9 million average annual value.

“Fans are like, ‘Well how can you turn that down?’ You have to dive into the system to see what he’s turning down and what he basically has coming to him,” Zimmerman told 106.7 The Fan’s ‘Sports Junkies’ show.

“The arbitration system is almost better than being a free agent right now and he’s gonna get four years of that… he’s gonna go from $8 [million] up to probably $12 [million] or $13 [million] or even more and then probably up to $20 [million] and then up to $25 [million] or $30 [million]… he’s guaranteed already basically $60-75 million.”

All options are still on the table for the Nationals regarding Soto’s long-term status with the team, but his agent in Scott Boras could very well be looking at previous mega deals as a blueprint for his client’s contract talks with Washington. For one, three-time American League MVP Award winner Mike Trout signed off on a 12-year, $426.5 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels at age 27, which is the third-best average annual value deal in baseball today at $35.8 million. For Soto, he is set to hit free agency at age 26.

In the big picture, Zimmerman well recognizes the situation his now-former team put itself in when it opted to trade versatile infielder Trea Turner to the Los Angeles Dodgers ahead of last season’s MLB trade deadline. In short, he sees that Soto sure is due for a grand payday that could end up rivaling Trout and the multitude of other top $30 million-plus average annual value talents in baseball today.

“I don’t want to say they have to sign him but once you trade Trea [Turner] — basically Trea and Juan were the two young guys that they knew those were gonna come up at some point,” Zimmerman said. “So that’s just the way the landscape of professional sports and baseball is and if you have a top-five player in the league, they’re gonna make somewhere between $30 and $40 million a year… it’s the going rate and that’s what it takes so we’ll see.”

At the least for Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo and Soto, they have plenty of time to come to a resolution on this matter.