I looked it up. According to this: https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/washington-nationals/payroll/2020/
We're about $39 million under the cap for 2020. So say you give Rendon $25-30, that leaves about $9 million for any other positions.
FAs at the end of 2019:
- Zimmerman ($18 million Team option or $2m buyout)
- Strasburg (Player option)
- Rendon (obviously)
- Dozier (bye)
- Rosenthal (see Dozier)
- Kendrick (see Rosenthal)
- Eaton (team option at $9.5 million or $1.5 million buyout)
- Gomes (team option at $9.0 million or $1 million buyout)
- Doolittle (team option at $6.5 million or $500k buyout)
- Sipp (team option at $2.5 million or $250k buyout)
The $39 million assumes we exercise options on everyone. But I think it's safe to assume that Zimmerman and Sipp are gone. So that add $18.75 million to the cap space number assuming my math is correct, and no major holes to fill save for 1B where Adams and Noll, or Adams and Zimmerman on a low value deal are likely fillers.
So to answer my own question, yeah, we can easily afford to give a big contract to Rendon and still not worry about cap space.
You'd still need a second baseman (presumably Kieboom, which is a nice cheap luxury if he works) and to fix the bullpen yet again. Moving Adams into the everyday lineup would also leave you with a terrible bench and basically nothing in the minors to help in the event of any position player injuries.
