2024 Season
A month ago, with the Washington Nationals hovering just below .500 and squarely in the thick of an extremely crowded NL Wild Card race, the thinking was that the Nats might hold on to all of their non-rental trade candidates and try to stay in the race while preparing to be a more serious contender next year, á la the 2022 Baltimore Orioles. Fast-forward a month, and not only did the Nats enter a bit of a tailspin - despite calling up top prospect James Wood - but they made an early trade over the weekend, sending top setup man Hunter Harvey (under team control through 2025, no less) to Kansas City for the Royals’ number two prospect and the 39th pick in the amateur draft, adding $2.395 million to their draft bonus pool.1
It was a master stroke by Mike Rizzo, and could mean that the Nats have the potential to really add to their stockpile over the next twelve days before the deadline. In lieu of these recent events, we will not only be adding Kyle Finnegan, Derek Law, and Lane Thomas back to this column, but we will also try to look a little closer at which teams might represent the best market for each trade candidate. Without further ado, let’s get into it. As always, we are working in order from most likely to be traded to least likely.
Jesse Winker
Pos: OF/DH | B/T: L/R | Best Fits: PHI, ATL, STL, PIT, LAD, MIN, KCR, SEA, HOU
Winker is still in the top ten in the National League in OBP, and there are a lot of contending teams that are struggling to get enough production from their outfield spots. Winker is only a rental and has pretty limited defensive value, so don’t expect the same caliber of return as the Nats got for Jeimer Candelario a year ago, but Winker might yet be the best lefty bat on the market this year.
Kyle Finnegan
Pos: RP | B/T: R/R | Best Fits: NYY, BAL, LAD, SDP, CIN, NYM
You are forgiven if you threw up in your mouth at the prospect of Finnegan being a Met for the next year and a half, but these are all of the contenders and pseudo-contenders with weaknesses in their bullpens. If Rizzo is willing to trade both Harvey and Finnegan, I would personally love to see him create a bidding war between the Yankees and Orioles, who not only are in a tight race for the AL East but now also have some bad blood thanks to Clay Holmes drilling Heston Kjerstad in the earhole on Saturday evening. Finnegan might not match the haul that Harvey did even though his role is ostensibly more important, because Harvey is younger and has better rate stats. However, teams will still be impressed by Finnegan’s career-best 1.017 WHIP, which would slot in nicely at the back end of any contender’s bullpen.
Lane Thomas
Pos: OF | B/T: R/R | Best Fits: PIT, LAD, MIN, KCR, SEA, HOU
Thomas has fewer fits than Winker because although he brings more than just his bat (Thomas has a cannon arm and 94th percentile sprint speed), he also has huge platoon splits and is due for a raise this winter in his final year of arbitration. That extra year of team control might mean that he would not be a candidate to be traded within the division to the Phillies or Braves (although I will acknowledge the inconsistency with listing the Mets as a possible Finnegan destination), which is not a concern with Winker. Additionally, Rizzo might opt to keep one veteran around in the outfield to ease the strain on what might otherwise be a garden full of rookies by the end of August (Wood, Young, and Crews).
Dylan Floro
Pos: RP | B/T: R/R | Best Fits: NYY, BAL, LAD, SDP, CIN, NYM
Floro has come back to earth a bit after his unsustainably hot start to the season, but there is no shortage of teams that could use a ground ball specialist in the middle innings. That kind of rental won’t bring back a ton in a trade, but if Rizzo can snag an intriguing live arm for Floro’s services, he should jump at the chance.
Derek Law
Pos: RP | B/T: R/R | Best Fits: NYY, BAL, LAD, SDP, CIN, NYM
Law is a somewhat younger, somewhat lesser version of Floro with an extra year of control, and his real struggles this year with inherited runners (a ghastly 20 of 29 have scored) are going to subtract from whatever market value he does have. Also of note, he is close to a career high in innings, a threshold he will probably clear before the end of this month.
Patrick Corbin
Pos: RP | B/T: R/R | Best Fits: NYY, BAL, LAD, SDP, CIN, NYM
With so many of the Nats’ young pitchers getting close to their likely innings limits for 2024 (Irvin, Parker, Herz, Andrew Alvarez and Brad Lord in AAA), Rizzo might decide to just ride it out with Corbin through the end of the year, because he has yet to miss a start due to injury in a Washington uniform. Beyond that, I can’t imagine another team trading for him without the Nats eating most or all of the ~$13 million due to him over August and September, just as I can’t imagine the Lerner family paying him to pitch for someone else.
Joey Gallo
Pos: 1B/3B/OF | B/T: L/R | Best Fits: PHI, ATL, PIT, MIN, KCR, SEA, HOU
Gallo remains on the injured list following a June hamstring pull, but it is possible that he returns in time to play a handful of games before the deadline. Everyone knows what he is at the plate, the king of the three true outcomes. What might get some team to bite on Gallo is his defensive versatility assuming the hammy is okay, because he can be an elite first baseman and above-average outfielder.
Trevor Williams
Pos: RP | B/T: R/R | Best Fits: NYY, BAL, LAD, SDP, CIN, NYM
Williams would be a lot higher on this list if he were healthy, but given that Josiah Gray just got shut down and put on the 60-day IL during his rehab from the exact same ailment (right flexor strain), the odds are not great that Williams pitches again this season, let alone in time for the deadline. He has yet to throw off of a mound, and there is just not enough time left for him to get more than perhaps a simulated game in before the deadline. He’s likely not going anywhere.
Jacob Barnes
Pos: RP | B/T: R/R | Best Fits: NYY, BAL, LAD, SDP, CIN, NYM
Someone who is the sixth-best reliever on a team that’s nine games under .500 is a much more likely DFA candidate than trade candidate, but there’s an outside chance that someone might want Barnes, I suppose.
It will be very interesting to see what happens with the deadline, whether the Nats hold, go into fire sale mode, or straddle the line in between. It also will be interesting to see who they trade with. The Royals have a pretty weak system, and Cayden Wallace (the #2 prospect for them) lands somewhere around #6 or #7 for the Nationals. Here’s where Keith Law had each potential trading partner’s system ranked back in February (before promotions and such - he had the Nats 11th):
ATL: 26th
BAL: 1st
CIN: 14th
HOU: 27th
KCR: 25th
LAD: 3rd
MIN: 17th
NYM: 15th
NYY: 7th
PHI: 19th
PIT: 9th
SDP: 18th
SEA: 16th
STL: 13th
Of course, not only do those teams run practically the full spectrum in system depth and talent, they also have different strengths and weaknesses. The Yankees and Mariners are generally very good at developing pitchers (as are the Pirates to a lesser extent), while the Orioles are overflowing with MLB-ready hitters at AAA Norfolk. It also matters what other teams decide to be sellers and who they have to offer, and whether they are going to be cheaper or more expensive trade partners in terms of prospect capital. The Marlins have the second-worst record in baseball, a turbulent front office, and are almost certainly going to run a fire sale, but apart from rental pitcher Tanner Scott all of their likely trade pieces are under team control through 2026 (Jesús Luzardo, Jazz Chisholm Jr., A.J. Puk, and Jesús Sánchez), and thus could be more expensive, causing teams to turn to a team like the Nats instead. The rumblings about the Blue Jays becoming sellers are growing stronger, and they could flood the market with expensive big-name veterans (rentals: Justin Turner, Kevin Kiermaier, Yusei Kikuchi, Yimi García, Trevor Richards, and Danny Jansen; non-rentals: Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Chad Green, Chris Bassitt, Bo Bichette, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.), causing the lower-wattage Nats to get lost in the shuffle. It’s always an interesting time of year, and the Nats are going to be one of the teams that helps shape the market in a big way.
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