Winter Meetings

The GM winter meetings kicked off this morning and the general belief is that the Nats are gonna be one of the most active teams at the meetings. I'm gonna present some of the rumors here and my thoughts on them.

The first big rumor involving the Nationals is trading for Andrew McCutchen. He had what he calls an off-year last year but what other players would call an above-average year. He still hit over .250 with an OBP of over .330. The fielding metrics were down, but the general feel around the league is that he's at worst an average defender, at best a solid one. He's a former MVP and he still has two affordable years left on his contract. Normally the cost of such a player would be huge but with the Pirates seemingly in rebuilding mode and with McCutchen having the worst season of his career last year, he comes off as fairly affordable. This deal makes sense for the Nats for a lot of reasons. The first and biggest reason is that they'd have an elite hitter in their lineup for two years, the exact same amount of time they have Harper and Murphy under contract for as well. The Nats window of opportunity is these 2 years so going all-in makes a lot of sense. The other reason is that getting McCutchen pushes strikeout machine Danny Espinosa to the bench, where he has a lot of value.

Apparently the Pirares want Victor Robles, the Nats 19 year old top hitting prospect who plays CF and has often been compared to McCutchen. They're also eyeing another two solid prospect. I'll go more into what I think should be offered in a second because I believed the main reason this deal wasn't done yet is that I thought the Nats wanted to find a way to trade for both McCutchen and Sale. According to a report this morning, this is exactly what's happening. So onto Sale.

Chris Sale is one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. Much like McCutchen, he has multiple affordable years left on his contract but unlike McCutchen, he didn't have an off-year last year. In fact, much like every other year of his career, he was outstanding. As a result, the asking price has apparently been through the roof. The Nats are rumored to be the most active in Sale trade talks, as well as McCutchen trade talks, and since both teams want prospects, I'm sure Rizzo is trying to find a way to get both teams to agree to trades for prospects that don't overlap.

Here's what I think the Nats should do: go for it all. They only have two guaranteed years left of Bryce Harper and winning a ring before he hits the open market could go a long way toward convincing potentially one of the greatest baseball players in history to stay in D.C. What do I think they should give up? I think for McCutchen a fair deal would be Robles, Lopez, and Freede. Lopez throws extremely hard and wasn't rocked in the majors last year so people believe in him a lot. Freede is still a young AA pitcher with solid potential so he's another good prospect. Dealing three solid prospects isn't easy, but I think it's a no-brainer to trade three potentially solid MLB players for one solid OF that could potentially go back to his elite level. For Sale, the price is going to be much steeper. I think the Nats have to throw Giolito, Ross, and another two solid prospects in. This is a huge haul for the White Sox, especially considering most scouts rate Giolito AT WORST as a #3 starter in the majors. But I think making these trades, while clearing out the farm system, makes the Nats one of the deepest teams in baseball.

The other big question for the Nationals at the winter meetings is how they're gonna figure out the closer situation. They've reportedly offered Melancon a 4-year deal, but so have the Giants and the Giants number is reportedly close to the $60 million he wants. I think he signs with the Giants because the money and rings are there. The Nationals can then realistically either go with a combination of Kelley/Glover as the closer next season, or make a trade. The Royals could be sellers and Wade Davis only has one year left on his contract, putting pressure on the front office to deal him if they don't expect to compete next year. Since he's a one-year rental, he shouldn't be too terribly expensive. I think a couple decent prospects gets that deal done. Such a deal would be extremely tricky, with the Nationals currently stuck on McCutchen and Sale talks, but I think if he's still available once the dust settles, I expect Rizzo to give the Royals a call.

A quick interesting rumor running around is that the Nats are using the recently acquired Derek Norris as trade bait and, if he's traded, are willing to sign Wieters to be their catcher. This makes a lot of sense because, unless Melancon somehow signs back in D.C., Rizzo is fixing his team solely through the trade market. This saves the Lerners a lot of money, which could result in them being willing to overpay for Wieters in order to get a solid catcher. I don't think this would happen this week but it's worth keeping an eye on. Also keep an eye on Gio Gonzales and Espinosa, as I'm sure Rizzo can find a way to use them both as trade chips provided he can get McCutchen and Sale. Rizzo has a lot of pieces to work with to get big trades done and I expect him to do so sooner rather than later.