The trade deadline is on July 30 at 6 p.m. EDT, and that is now less than two weeks from today. While considering trades, teams will simultaneously be working on signing their drafted players to contracts with a deadline of August 1st. That will keep all front offices busy. The man at the top for the Washington Nationals, general manager Mike Rizzo, will be overseeing all of that plus tasking his young team with higher expectations for fundamental improvement.
“We are looking forward to the consistent improvement on a daily basis. I think that our next focus, our next goal, is to play cleaner baseball, and to eliminate the mistakes on the bases, and that type of thing.”
— general manager Mike Rizzo said on the Sports Junkies
“… The mental mistakes and running into outs is something we have addressed and have to improve at.”
“The second half of the season — you’re going to see a huge focus put on that, and the onus will be on the players to focus and concentrate on those aspects of the game.”
That is a welcomed sign that Rizzo is addressing the daily sloppiness on the field. The Nats defense picked up a little bit last week to get the team into tie for the 26th in baseball for defense behind the pitcher — add in the worst catching defense in MLB — and the Nats are the worst defensive team in baseball. With Trey Lipscomb at third base and James Wood in left field, there is some hope for more improvement.
The team has gone 6-14 since that Hunter Harvey blow-up loss in San Diego. If they went 14-6 or even 12-8, like they could have gone, the Nats would be buyers. Imagine going 12-8 in the past 20-games, the team would be 50-47 instead of their actual 44-53, and look at those six games they just blew in that span. Now the die seems to have been cast on the Nats being partial sellers.
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 Lane Thomas and Kyle Finnegan. While some might call it 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.
The Washington Nationals will look different in two weeks. They feel different after a great draft has brought in more farm talent with Seaver King, Caleb Lomavita, and Luke Dickerson. The Harvey traded yielded Lomavita, and also Cayden Wallace. Those will be four new names added to the Nats Top-20 in their farm system.
Because the Florida Complex League (FCL) completes it’s season on July 25, some of the new draft picks will not get the opportunity to play this year. All of the signed draft picks will head to the Nats spring training facilities in West Palm Beach, and a small group of the top college players will eventually go to Class-A Fredericksburg at some point in August. We might get our first looks at King, Lomavita, and Wallace, there are others like Kevin Bazzell who could push his way to Fredericksburg.
But keep in mind, as you add players to minor league rosters, you have to subtract players. Some might be subtracted indirectly by MLB trades that could be an opportunity for promotions of minor league players. At some point we expect top prospect Dylan Crews and RHP Zach Brzykcy to make their MLB debuts this year. We are still waiting for the season debuts of injured pitchers Cade Cavalli and LHP Jose A. Ferrer.
Change will come in many ways for the rest of the season, and there are only 65-games remaining in the regular season. To think that the season’s end is that close, you want to enjoy some good baseball.
“… You can’t tell me that you can’t see the ascension for all these young players. I think when you factor that in — and our young pitching — the way they’re [performing], and the young players coming up, and the payroll flexibility — you have to be enthusiastic about where this franchise is going in the future.”
— Rizzo said to the Sports Junkies
To hear Rizzo speak the words, “payroll flexibility,” in a mid-season discussion is telling. Yes, we mentioned it last week, but to have Rizzo say it has more impact. You can certainly read into what Rizzo said that he believes he will be spending in the off-season. But also remember that if you trade away a player like Thomas — that would free up approximately $9 million for the offseason budget, and probably a little more than that if Finnegan was traded.
So what might feel like a step forward, and a step backwards, could really be looked at the draft and any trade capital received is building a more sustained future of winning with putting the player development system in motion, and then hope for a great offseason of free agent signings — and this could be a playoff contender with a little improvement since the starting pitching has exceeded expectations as Rizzo said.
If there is any good news about finishing this season below .500 is that the Nationals should be in a more advantageous spot in the next year’s draft, and guess what, Baseball America already has their first 2025 mock draft with the Nationals selecting 4th overall. The future is bright.
