On Tuesday at 22:00 (CEST) the Non-Waiver Trade Deadline will be at the MLB. Until then, the rumour mill is boiling and teams will try to make the last trades. One player who is particularly in focus is Bryce Harper. But does a trade by the Washington National superstar make any sense?
MLB’s Non-Waiver Trade Deadline is literally on the doorstep. In a few hours nothing more will be possible – at least in the normal way – on the trade market. The teams have a corresponding urgency in securing their squads for the rest of the season.
This applies to the top teams like the Red Sox, Yankees and Astros as well as teams like the Twins and Angels, who seem to be giving up hope for the playoffs this year.
One team that is in an extreme dilemma is the Washington Nationals, who have to decide whether they are a “contender or pretender”, as Yankees GM Brian Cashman so aptly put it two years ago.
Correspondingly there are rumours about superstar Bryce Harper, who also becomes a free agent in the winter. According to the latest reports, Nationals has “let the competition know” that Harper is available.
Now let us not debate whether there is anything to these rumours; after all, we should not believe anything these days that has not been officially proclaimed. It’s more about finding out whether Nationals Harper should actually trade.
One of the main reasons why such a trade would make sense is the table. Nationals are currently in third place in the National League East with a negative record of 52-53 – 5.5 games behind leaders Philadelphia, 5 behind the Braves. The gap to the second wildcard is also 5.5 games with the additional problem that there are five teams between them and the Brewers.
Of course, these are not yet distances that seem unassailable, after all, baseball can be very fast, especially with many direct duels still outstanding with Philly and Atlanta. But if the season so far is any indication, Nationals simply lack the necessary consistency. According to Fangraphs, their probability of reaching the playoffs is only 42.5 percent.
But do you trade your superstar? Numerous teams find such a decision extremely difficult. The regional neighbors of the Nats, the Orioles, made the Machado trade to the Dodgers only shortly after the All-Star Game and also rather reluctantly. In the end, however, their sporting situation was so much worse than that in the capital that this comparison is an unfair one.
Harper was the face of this franchise for years, General Manager Mike Rizzo says he is very attached to his protégé and also the family of learners, the owners of Nationals, has grown fond of Harper. Such a trade would therefore have to overcome a serious inhibition threshold.
To do this, of course, a monster offer would help. An offer the Nationals couldn’t refuse. But who is willing to do this for a player who does not necessarily show top level this season (121 OPS+ – career average: 138)? And a player who becomes a free agent at the end of the year?
That in turn should motivate Nationals to make the deal. The reason for this is that the superstar’s departure in winter is not so unlikely. His agent is Scott Boras, and he is notorious for raising epic bidding contests and getting the last cent for his clients. Anyone who hires him as an agent is more likely not to refuse bidders a “hometown discount”, the highest bidder is preferred. So even if the Nats are trading Harper now, it probably won’t change their chances of a long-term (mega) deal in winter…
From this perspective, Nationals must ask themselves whether they can and want to keep Harper beyond this season. If the answer is no, then a trade should be sought; after all, this is the last chance to receive adequate compensation for it. If he is held until the end of the season and the qualifying offer, which he will logically refuse, you would at best get a second round pick in the next draft as compensation.
All this under the premise that Nationals will throw in the towel for 2018 and no longer hope that Harper in particular will grow enormously in the last two months of the season.
This shotgun, however, weighs heavily, as Nationals have started the season as one of the top favourites. Their squad is first-class and has even been brilliantly reinforced with the arrival of rookie outfielder Juan Soto. In addition, Max Scherzer is probably the clear favourite for this year’s Cy Young Award, which he would have won for the third time in a row. Pure quality for a long playoff run.
As a reminder: Before the season, the main topic in D.C. was the question of how to overcome one’s inner hog and survive the first playoff round for the first time ever. Now such considerations seem far away. A Harper trade would probably also be an admission of one’s own failure.
The Boston Red Sox, who ultimately won the World Series, started the year solid but not really masterly. They then realized that a playoff run would not have been possible under the prevailing conditions and pulled the rip cord.
The Red Sox did the unthinkable and separated from their star shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, who at the time was named in the same breath as Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. Nomar had to go and for him came shortstop Orlando Cabrera and first baseman Doug Mintkiewicz.
Neither were outstanding names, but people with qualities that eliminated deficits in Boston – defensive deficits! Cabrera was a much better defender than Nomar and Mintkiewicz was a defensive bank on first base anyway.
If Nationals were to trade Harper, this could be a signal to the rest of the team, as well as a huge defensive upgrade. Harper currently has to play more in Center Field, although he is actually at home in Right Field. Now there are quite a few who would find a cast of Michael A. Taylor or the highly talented rookie Victor Robles more effective.
At the same time, it might even be possible to close other construction sites in the squad if a monster trade were to take place. Nationals, for example, urgently need a new catcher and the trade market is not exactly blessed with an abundance of such.
A Harper Trade could make sense without wagging the white towel when used to recalibrate a squad like in Boston. And who knows, maybe such a move is the only chance for Washington to save this season.
This article was published without previous view by the Major League Baseball.