We are clearly going to be buyers this trade season. What are our big needs?

Middle of the order Bat: options Jay Bruce and Reddick seem likely to be moved. Long shot hopes are for Longoria and Caberea

Bullpen: Andrew Miller should be in play, has a big contract but great stuff. Sean Doolittle could come much cheaper and be a good late inning arm

SP: I don't think we need to add much to the roto, but if the A's are fire selling Sonny Gray would be a nice pipe dream.

My guess is we have to keep Zimmerman and Werth because of the terrible contracts and will be hard to upgrade the middle of the order

Id be wary of trading for Reddick now. I know its just a thumb but after 6 weeks. It might take him awhile to "get going" if we were to go after him I think it would be that one of our outfielders went down for the year.

Of all the trades proposed here so far, Sean Doolittle makes the most sense, but I think Kelley/Rivero/Perez have been pretty reliable in 7 and 8 (Kelley is superb). And the bullpen could get a jolt if Reynaldo Lopez or Koda Glover joins it in August, or if A.J. Cole gains an extra bit of guts by switching to relief, or if Matt Belisle is OK when he comes back.

Trea Turner coming up and Espi becoming a super-sub will help a bit too, probably. I'd guess that gives us an extra win in the long run.

One bullpen arm, would love one of the Yankee three, anyone but paps closing,

Braun and Jeffress in a package deal please

The Lerners have not been willing to take on additional payroll at the deadline in past years. I'm not sure why they would begin to this year. I'm sure Rizzo has wanted to in the past but has been denied by ownership. They seem to set the budget for the year and then don't waver.

We'll see if that changes this year. It's really hurt this team in the past.

Because they're spending less money this year than the last two years.

Given a chance to go far in post-season, the Lerners might have some flexibility this year.

To be fair, they had that chance to go far in 2012 and 2014, and were unwilling to add payroll at that time.

I hope so but I'll believe it when I see it. They seem to be the types that set the payroll for the year and stick to it no matter what happens. I sure hope you're right though. Give Rizzo the freedom to go and buy what he needs to make the push.

I would think most teams are that way (hell most orginizations), but that most gmsare smart enough to build in some flexibility so that they can make moves at the deadline

The Nats were in pursuit of Heyward and Cespedes this offseason. That 25-30 mill in payroll is still there. Now it's just if we want to spend it

The Nats were in pursuit of Heyward and Cespedes this offseason. That 25-30 mill in payroll is still there. Now it's just if we want to spend it

Spent it on Murphy

If this source is correct they are at $163 million so well below the Luxury Tax Threshold ($189 million I believe).  Will they spend it? If they take on another big contract would seem to go against looking "poor" for the MASN legal stuff.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/salaries/_/name/wsh/washington-nationals

If this source is correct they are at $163 million so well below the Luxury Tax Threshold ($189 million I believe).  Will they spend it? If they take on another big contract would seem to go against looking "poor" for the MASN legal stuff.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/salaries/_/name/wsh/washington-nationals

http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/

Sportrac has them at about 147 million

That's probably more correct. Not sure what the differences are; in any event, they have some $ without hitting the luxury tax.

Last year they were twenty million away from the luxury tax  and Rizzo, apparently, didn't have the flexibility he wanted. Which is how we ended up with Papelbon.