Yesterday was one of the most important days on the baseball calendar, the trade deadline. It is a day, like the draft and international signing period, where every team in baseball is trying to get better. Some for a post-season run this season and others for next season or season’s afterwards.
My favorite baseball team, the Washington Nationals, are in that latter category. They messed up their opportunity to become a perennial powerhouse in baseball by letting too many star players walk away or by trading them off. They misjudged current talent and current prospects and ended up so far behind the eight ball that they let both their GM and manager go mid-season.
The trade deadline is a place where rebuilds can get a power boost. The Nationals attempted to jump their rebuild or avoid it all together by trading for close to major league ready talent in 2021. This was the official start of the rebuild. The idea was to get players closer to the majors than more projectable prospects that wouldn’t be ready for years to come. Sadly the Nationals didn’t get better and made that exact type of trade one year later. Oddly enough the trade where they focused on getting better players worked out much better than the trade where the focus was on the readiness and not the quality.
When it comes to yesterday their interim GM played it safe. There were rumors that teams had come calling for the Nats top starting pitcher, McKenzie Gore, but as he stayed put it looks like no team offered the right deal to tempt the Nats interim GM into making a deal.
The issue at hand is how far away are the Nationals. It is tough to tell by record alone. The Nats top prospect, Dylan Crews, hit the IL just when he was starting to heat up and show why he belonged in the majors, and has been out for the better part of two months with an injury that typically has a 6-8 week recovery time.
While all this is worrying the Nationals had a good draft and now picked up several prospects at the trade deadline. I have no if any of them will be any good as they are all just names to me, but I do hope they turn things around and then don’t screw it all up again.
David Huzzard Writes 