I looked up Hosmer: he makes $13 million a year, which is $2 million cheaper than Cruz, although Hosmer has a longer contract. Let Hosmer and YadiStar share 1b and DH. He is rated 1.3 WAR so far in '22 by B-Ref.
Maybe better: trade him to Kansas City for their CF, who hits better than Robles, runs the bases better (last I looked, F-G rated Robles a negative base-runner), and fields better than Robles as he knows where to throw. MAT can handle CF until one of the kids, like Vaquero, is ready.
It counts 18 million towards the luxury tax which shouldn't be much of an issue for the Nats for the life of the contract. I can see this being mutually beneficial to both teams. We get a cheap MLB vet, they save on luxury tax thresholds.
