The Nats need major league ballplayers. Candelario is the best 3B they have had since Rendon. He hits and he fields. That is talent, and talent at a key position. Kieboom has never shown a hint that he can do hit major league pitching or field. He is not hitting much at Rochester. So the Nats should just throw away. Yet you continue to blather that the Nats should trade Candelario and, yet again, have nobody at 3B.
The Nationals need MLB ballplayers in 2025 and beyond. That's what they're going for. That is what is needed. In order to do that, you have to get quality players into your system. Whether its to develop them into players, or trade them for players, a MLB franchise has to have them.
Who cares if we have nobody at third next year or 2025? Who cares? What difference does Candelario make? We're seeing it. Career year Candelario still leads to well below .500 team. You need more good players, and the only way we're getting them is through minor league development.
So Candelario is a good player but the Nats don't need a 3B? Remember Maikel Franco? Why should the Nats depend putting the next Franco at 3B? Why should anyone be certain that Brady House is the next Eddie Matthews or Brooks Robinson or Ryan Zimmerman? Yet you flip from saying that Candelario is just another journeyman to now insisting that you know what he will get as a free agent. Do you claim to read minds?
They don't need a good third baseman in 2024 and 2025. They will after. I don't think Candelario is going to be very good at the age of 32. And did you not see last season's free agent class? Michael Conforto hadn't played in two years, and he got a 2 year, 36 mil contract. Andrew Benintendi got 5 for 75. Mitch Hanginer got 3 for 43. Next year's free agent class has significantly less talent. You're not getting Canedelario on some chump change deal. Not if he's coming off a career year.
The point I made, and which you ignore or don't understand: the Nats should try to re-sign Candelario. If they can't, then trade him because some return is better than no return. But what is your point in asking, as an insult, if I don't know that the Nats have a bad bullpen? Why are you certain that the Nats can build a winning bullpen, that fragile thing, a bullpen, that the team can trade Candelario for a good-or-great relief pitcher? They traded Kyle Schwarber for Aldo Ramirez, who has not pitched since. Nothing is so certain.
The Nats can try and re-sign him after they trade him. But he 100% should be traded at the deadline. Getting something is better than getting nothing. THat's what not trading Candelario gets you. Nothing. Cus he ain't coming back. The Lerners aren't going to be the big spenders in the offseason. And Candelario is taking the most money he can get.
Also, you keep bring up Schwarber for Ramirez. Why? Schwarber was going to free agency. The Nats could have beat the 4/80 that he signed. So unless your arguement is they should have just held on to him for the draft pick attached to a QO, I fail to see any point. Not all trades work out. Thats why you trade as much as you can in rebuild.
Only three? Owners have been building baseball teams for about 150 years, but you "know" for certain because your logic tells you Rizzo signed this group of free agents only so he could flip them? That the only reasons are the three you think of, and that he must never change his mind? Is he that inflexible? Or maybe you are. Maybe Rizzo will try to hold onto any useful player he happens to net?
There's only three where Rizzo is concerned. Owners are a different matter. What other possible reason did he have? He was gonna sign him to a 5 million dollar deal and then, what, try and extend him in a career year? Candelario would laugh so hard. Dude is gonna cash in. And if the Lerners want to outbid MLB for the services of Canedlario, by all means, do so. And they can do it after we trade him. Because that dude is not gonna care that we traded him if we slap down a 5 year, 110 million dollar contract. Hell, he'd probably thank us for giving him a chance to play meaningful baseball.
Yet you tell us, again and again, that the Nats can lose all the time until that unicorn future, when they have lost so much that they have assembled a championship team? Don't try to win? Should the Nats tank every single season? Even when they cannot draft better than 10th?
And that's it: at some point, you try to win games. Because the purpose of baseball is to win as many games as possible.
At some point, we will try and win some games. But not now, and not next year. LIke 2008, and 2009, and 2010, and 2011, the goal is to develop talent. So when you have it, you can go after the right free agents to fill in what you don't have. Just like Rizzo did and got us to a WS. Its not a unicorn future. We're already seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. No reason to continue to capitalize on this momentum and continue to build your farm depth, so you have quality prospects and players after Wood and House get called up. So you have quality prospects to trade for the next Sean Doolittle, or the next Gio Gonzalez.
