Numerous times, Washington Nationals’ general manager Mike Rizzo has made it clear that he would have to be blown away to trade key players like Hunter Harvey, Kyle Finnegan, and Lane Thomas, who all had team control that extended into the 2025 season. Well, on Saturday, Rizzo traded Harvey to the Kansas City Royals for their No. 2 prospect, and their one tradeable draft pick, No. 39, in Sunday’s MLB Draft.
In the trade, Rizzo literally traded away 1.407 seasons of Harvey’s contract for Cayden Wallace, and that coveted No. 39 pick. What Rizzo’s new draft group turned that pick into was Baseball America’s No. 18 ranked draft prospect, catcher Caleb Lomavita. Keep in mind, Harvey hits free agency after the 2025 season.
Would you have traded that 1.4 seasons of Harvey for Lomavita straight up? Yes. Rizzo got Lomavita, the No. 1 catcher in the draft per Baseball America’s evaluations, plus Wallace, who was drafted by the Royals in the 2nd round of the 2022 MLB June Amateur Draft from University of Arkansas.
Now to preface some of this, Wallace was the No. 2 player in the Royals’ weak farm system, and MLB Pipeline already seeded him at No. 6 in the Nats’ system. And keep in mind that Wallace will be reseeded again at some point, when the new draft picks like Seaver King and Lomavita, officially sign their contracts and are most likely seeded ahead of him — and in mid-August James Wood may no longer be considered a prospect if he meets the rookie threshold of 130 at-bats or 45-days on the Nats’ active roster. So yes, there could be a lot of commutations in the Nats’ prospect rankings in the coming months..
Still, the trade was impressive to get those two players for Harvey, who had been scuffling since his June 24th meltdown in a game in San Diego when the Nats’ 3-run lead disappeared in an horrific blown save and loss. Harvey finished his Nats’ tenure with a 4.20 ERA this season.
Some felt that the Nats would only get lotto ticket trade offers for Harvey, yet Rizzo pulled off another stunning trade that could eclipse his trade with the Minnesota Twins in which Rizzo got Wilson Ramos and Joe Testa for 1.38 years of Matt Capps. Ramos would be voted 4th in Rookie of the Year, earn a Silver Slugger, and would be a 2x All-Star.
Of course all trades are viewed long into the future with hindsight to fully grasp how the players turned out — and we have to see how Wallace and Lomavita perform for the Nationals. On July 6, Wallace was hit by a pitch that fractured a rib, and he is currently on the Double-A IL list. He was hitting .282 with a .777 OPS, three home runs and 16 RBIs in his 34 games with the Royals Double-A affiliate in Arkansas. But still good enough to be the Royals No. 2 prospect.
Could Lomavita, 21, be as good as or better than Ramos? We will see. Again, the Hawaiian catcher was viewed as the top catcher in the draft and hit .322 with 13 doubles, one triple, 15 home runs, 52 RBIs, 12 walks, 12 stolen bases and 51 runs scored in 55 games in college this year. He posted a .395 OBP, .586 SLG, and was one of eight catchers in NCAA Division I with 10 or more stolen bases and 10 or more home runs.
Here is what Baseball America wrote about Lomavita: “…has a chance to be an above-average defender thanks to his athleticism, above-average arm and strong hands. He’s consistently gotten better as a receiver and blocker, and scouts have praised his work ethic and mentality for the position. Speed is an afterthought for [most] catchers, but Lomavita is an above-average runner who went 35-for-42 in stolen base attempts in college. He has a chance to be the first catcher drafted in the middle of the first round.”
If you believe in the Baseball America evaluation of Lomavita, and he hits well as a pro, this will be a huge win for the Nats as you have to be concerned with current Nats’ primary catcher, Keibert Ruiz, who has been one of the worst defensive catchers in baseball. The Nats aren’t getting rid of Ruiz, but there’s a good chance that he would slide back to being the back-up catcher in the future.
TalkNats had approached the draft with a goal that the Nats would hopefully come away with a top-4 catching prospect in the draft, and the Nats got not only Lomavita in the draft as the top-rated catcher, but also Kevin Bazzell, the 5th ranked catcher in the draft.
The trade deadline is on July 30 at 6 p.m. EDT, and that is exactly two short weeks from today. Players who are most likely to be traded are the ones on expiring deals like Jesse Winker and Dylan Floro. The other two players on expiring deals, Trevor Williams and Joey Gallo, are both on the injured list, and while they could be traded — they won’t get the returns they would have received if they were healthy. The names getting the most mention have team control through next year like Thomas and Finnegan. While this might look like a fire sale, it really isn’t. This is just doing what is right for a team that isn’t going to the playoffs this year, short of a miracle. You have to try to trade off expiring contracts. Sometimes you don’t get a good trade offer and you stand firm with the player.
With all of the criticism that Rizzo and his front office receives, they deserve the praise for a 4-D chess move to pull off the Wallace and Lomavita acquisitions.
