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Rizzo: Nationals Won’t “Dilute” Trade Returns By Attaching Bad Contracts

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As soon as it reported that the Nationals were willing to listen to offers on star outfielder Juan Soto, there was speculation about the possibility of utilizing Soto’s unprecedented trade value to dump some or all of the $59MM owed to Patrick Corbin in 2023-24. (Stephen Strasburg’s name was also a popular source of speculation, but he has full no-trade protection, making that scenario even less likely.) In his weekly radio appearance on 106.7 FM’s “The Sports Junkies,” Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo plainly stated that he will not water down his return for any player, Soto or otherwise, by insisting that a trade partner take on an undesirable contract (link to full audio of the 21-minute interview).

“We’ve never contacted teams and talked about Juan Soto and attaching any contract to any player,” said Rizzo. “We’re not going to dilute a return for any player by adding a bad contract. That’s not where we’re at in our organization at this time. We want to get the most for each and every trade that we do, so we certainly are not going to tack on anybody’s contract to anybody’s deal, including Juan Soto’s or Josh Bell’s or anybody.”

Fans hoping to see their favorite team absorb the Corbin contract in order to reduce the prospect cost of acquiring Soto can’t be thrilled by that declaration, but it’s the sensible course of action for Rizzo and his staff to take if they indeed follow through on a Soto trade — be it this summer or in the offseason. Rizzo did candidly acknowledge that the Nationals are discussing trades involving Soto and appear to have legitimate interest from several other clubs. Whether a team will meet a historic asking price (reportedly as many as six prospects and/or young big leaguers), of course, remains to be seen. Unsurprisingly, Rizzo did not offer any specifics pertaining to ongoing Soto discussions.

“When we offered Juan this contract, with his agent’s knowledge, we told him when the deal was turned down, ’We’re going to have to explore all our options,'” Rizzo continued. “That’s all we’ve ever said. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t explore all the options now presented to us. We’ve got pretty good options. We’ve got a talented Juan Soto for two and a half more seasons. That’s Option A — it’s a good one. But we also have to think about options B and C. My job is to make this organization a consummate winner again, like we did from 2012 to 2019. I have to figure out ways, as the caretaker of this franchise, to make us a championship organization for a long time to come.”

Taking a step further back, Rizzo lamented that his team’s reported 15-year, $440MM extension offer to Soto became public. The GM stated that it “unequivocally” was not leaked by him or other members of the Nationals front office.

“[The leak] didn’t help us in anything we were trying to do,” said Rizzo. “It didn’t help us keep a good relationship with Juan, and it didn’t help us with any kind of leverage at the trade deadline. So it really hurt us that the information got out.”

Speaking further on the matter, Rizzo acknowledged that while reports of prior extension offers to Soto had contained inaccurate terms, the reported 15-year, $440MM terms of his team’s latest proposal were indeed accurate. He added that he doesn’t harbor any ill feelings toward Soto for the choice to turn down what would’ve been the largest contract in MLB history, but also pushed back on suggestions that Max Scherzer’s $43.33MM annual value should have any bearing on the AAV in a potential Soto deal. As Rizzo points out, a short-term deal for a 37-year-old pitcher is an entirely different beast than a 15-year offer to a 23-year-old who still has a pair of trips through the arbitration process remaining.

There was, of course, no firm declaration that Soto would be traded. Rizzo emphasized that the Nats are “going to have to get the deal that we want … that gets us the opportunity to become a championship organization faster than not trading him.” On the Lerner family’s looming sale of the Nationals franchise, Rizzo stated that the potential ownership change “has not factored one bit into the decision-making process.”

Fans of the Nats and virtually any other team will want to check out the whole interview, as Rizzo’s candor is both fascinating and uncommon among current baseball operations leaders throughout the league. Beyond the Soto drama, Rizzo also discusses the team’s recent draft, his respect for and relationship with the Boras Corporation, the broader state of the team’s ongoing “reboot,” and the confidence he has in his plan to engineer a swift turnaround for the organization.

Brewers Among Teams Interested In Josh Bell

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The Brewers are among the growing list of teams with interest in Nationals first baseman Josh Bell, reports SNY’s Andy Martino. Both Martino and Jeff Passan of ESPN suggest that Bell could be among the first notable names to change hands, perhaps sooner than later. Getting a Bell deal completed in the near future would give Washington general manager Mike Rizzo additional time to focus on the deluge of trade interest he’s receiving in star outfielder Juan Soto.

Milwaukee joins the Mets and Astros as teams known to have interest in Bell, a 29-year-old switch-hitter who’s enjoying a .302/.388/.492 batting line in his final season before reaching free agency. Martino reported yesterday that there has not been substantial momentum in talks between the Mets and the Nationals regarding Bell. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, meanwhile, reports that Bell remains a “priority” for the Astros as they look to upgrade amid Yuli Gurriel’s struggles.

For the Brewers, Bell would serve as both an offensive and defensive upgrade at first base over Rowdy Tellez. Bell has significantly improved as a defensive option at first base in recent years, going from a bottom-five ranked defender to a player who now has slightly above-average ratings at the position. It’s possible that the Brewers’ internal evaluation still favors Tellez, but both Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average peg Bell as the better option.

That’s not to say that a Bell acquisition would push Tellez out of a job, but Bell could very well result in Tellez spending more time at designated hitter. A Bell-to-Brewers scenario could prove more worrisome for veteran Andrew McCutchen, who hasn’t performed up to expectations since signing a one-year deal and has uncharacteristically been far worse against left-handed opponents than against righties. Were McCutchen handling lefties as he typically does, a Tellez/McCutchen platoon at DH would appear formidable. That’s not the case, though, as McCutchen’s .230/.281/.402 slash against lefties leaves plenty to be desired.

Bell would give Milwaukee (or any other club) a legitimate middle-of-the-order presence against both lefties and righties. While he’s been better as a left-handed batter (.311/.402/.493), the longtime Pirates slugger has still crushed lefties at a .287/.362/.488 clip this season. Bell had a rough first month of the 2021 season but has generally been outstanding since, hitting at a combined .289/.375/.497 with just a 15.1% strikeout rate and an 11.6% walk rate in his past 920 trips to the plate. Bell hits the ball on the ground more than he should (50.9% in that stretch of 920 PAs), but he’s also seen one in five fly-balls he’s hit during that time leave the yard.

The Nats also figure to have several relievers available, with each of Steve Cishek, Carl Edwards Jr. and Kyle Finnegan a candidate to change hands prior to next Tuesday’s deadline. It’s conceivable that the Brewers or any other team with interest in Bell might also try to pry a bullpen arm loose, though Bell should have sufficient value to net a notable prospect or two on his own.

Yesterday’s MLB/MLBPA failure to reach an agreement on an international draft means that the qualifying offer system will remain in place, meaning the Nats will need to be convinced that whichever prospect(s) they receive in exchange for Bell would outweigh the value of a value of a compensatory pick in the 2023 amateur draft. Bell has been a bargain on a $10MM salary this season, so it stands to reason that the Nats would have little hesitation in making a qualifying offer in the $19MM range in order to ensure that they receive draft compensation when he departs as a free agent. That’s an unlikely scenario, given trade interest in Bell, but it’s worth noting that yesterday’s outcome played into the favor of the Nats and a few other non-contenders who are peddling rental players that look like obvious QO candidates this offseason.

Mets Rumors: Bell, Mancini, Szapucki

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There’s not much traction at present between the Nationals and Mets on a potential Josh Bell swap, reports SNY’s Andy Martino. Bell is one of several designated hitter candidates in whom the Mets are known to have interest, but it seems as though talks between the two parties haven’t proved fruitful. Pat Ragazzo and Michael Marino of Sports Illustrated/Fan Nation report that the Mets put forth an offer for Bell and a Nationals reliever that included an upper-level minor league starter and outfielder.

The Mets moved last week to begin augmenting their DH rotation, flipping reliever Colin Holderman to the Pirates in a trade that brought Daniel Vogelbach back to Queens. Vogelbach, however, figures to be a pure platoon option, whereas the switch-hitting Bell would be an everyday option who’d push Vogelbach into a bench role. The Mets have continued to look for potential DH upgrades even in the wake of the Voeglbach deal, Martino writes, with Trey Mancini, C.J. Cron and Willson Contreras among those who might still be under consideration.

They won’t have the opportunity to evaluate Mancini today, as he’ll take a seat on the heels of an 0-for-22 swoon at the plate. That offensive freefall has dropped Mancini’s batting line from a robust .285/.359/.429 (124 wRC+) to .268/.345/.404 (113 wRC+). Mancini has still been better than a league-average hitter on the whole, but it’s a poor time for him to struggle through his toughest patch of the season, particularly from a team vantage point.

The Orioles won 10 games in a row to thrust themselves onto the fringes of the American Wild Card chase prior to the deadline, but they’ve since gone 2-4 against the Rays and Yankees in a pair of road series. Mancini’s slump obviously isn’t the sole cause of the team’s momentum slowing down, but it was a contributing factor as Baltimore dropped a few close games. It’s also suboptimal for a club that could still move Mancini prior to next Tuesday’s trade deadline; an 0-for-22 doesn’t wipe out all of Mancini’s trade value, of course, but it’s tougher for a rival front office to give up a prospect of note for a hitter in such a pronounced slump.

Cron has a robust .292/.347/.546 line on the year, but it’s questionable whether the Rockies would consider moving him when he’s cheaply signed for 2023, particularly since Colorado GM Bill Schmidt has already pushed back against a major sell-off. Contreras seems a virtual lock to move in the next eight days, but the Mets reluctance to deal from the top of the farm system would make landing perhaps the top rental bat available a challenge.

Bell, Mancini and Vogelbach were just a handful of the Mets’ reported targets as they look to bolster the lineup, and Martino reported last week that GM Billy Eppler and his team were exploring trade scenarios involving both Dominic Smith and J.D. Davis. Clearly, there’s some turnover to be expected. Martino even floats the possibility of the Mets dealing Vogelbach if they land an impact bat, although there’s no indication that’s especially likely.

The exact return the Mets might surrender in order to bolster the lineup is, of course, wholly dependent on the caliber of player on which they settle — but Mike Puma of the New York Post reports (Twitter link) that minor league lefty Thomas Szapucki has drawn some interest from other teams as New York has poked around the trade market. The 26-year-old lefty has yielded a staggering 15 runs in just five Major League innings across the past two seasons, but Szapucki has had a nice year in Triple-A Syracuse, pitching to a 3.48 ERA with a huge 31.9% strikeout rate against an 11% walk rate in 62 innings.

Those 62 frames have been scattered over 16 starts, which comes out to an average of under four innings per outing. That’s a bit of a strange phenomenon, even in today’s game, but the Mets have been cautious with Szapucki’s workload after he underwent Tommy John surgery in 2018 and season-ending surgery on his ulnar nerve last summer. He began the year throwing just two to three innings per start but has continued to build up his pitch count over the course of the year, peaking with a season-high 93 pitches back on July 6.

The Mets and other clubs may want to be cautious with his overall innings total and his pitch count on a game-to-game basis, but he’s a reasonably youthful lefty who can be controlled at least six years beyond the current campaign. Even if there’s some injury risk, he has three average or better pitches and could certainly operate as a multi-inning reliever down the road if his arm doesn’t prove capable of a starter’s workload. Speculatively, Szapucki would fit the billing of the “upper-level starting pitcher” the Mets are said to have offered to Washington in Bell talks, though there’s no specific indication that Szapucki was part of that offer.

Astros Among Teams With Interest In Josh Bell

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Nationals first baseman Josh Bell is among the likeliest trade candidates on the market, and the Astros are among the teams interested in adding the slugger to their lineup, SNY’s Andy Martino tweets. The Mets are also said to have interest in Bell, who figures to appeal to just about any team in need of an offensive upgrade.

The 29-year-old Bell (30 next month) has been a force in Washington’s lineup for the past two seasons, coming over from the Pirates in a trade that sent Wil Crowe and minor league righty Eddy Yean to Pittsburgh in return. After an awful first month in D.C. last season, the switch-hitting Bell picked up the pace and hasn’t really slowed down. Since May 1, 2021 — a span of 902 plate appearances — Bell is hitting .293/.376/.503 with 38 long balls, 43 doubles and four triples.

Bell achieves that production with a combination of strong plate discipline and far better bat-to-ball skills than one might expect from a burly 6’4″, 255-pound slugger. He’s walked at an impressive 11.2% clip over that stretch of 902 trips to the plate and struck out in just 15.2% of them (including just 13.5% this season). Bell makes consistently strong contact (45.5% hard-hit rate, 91.1 mph average exit velocity), and although he puts the ball on the ground more than is ideal for someone with his power (51.3% ground-ball rate), he’s adept at spraying line drives. Also, while only 28.2% of Bell’s batted balls during this run have been classified as fly-balls, more than one in five of those flies (20.5%) has left the yard.

Bell once graded as a poor defender at first base but has improved his ratings in recent years. Public metrics like Defensive Runs Saved (+3) and Outs Above Average (+1) feel he’s been a solid option at the position this season — a far cry from early in his career when he was turning in full-season marks of -7 and -8. That defensive improvement is surely key for the Astros, who would have to play Bell at first base with a good deal of frequency given the presence of Yordan Alvarez at designated hitter. Alvarez is capable of playing left field and may do so more often with Michael Brantley out indefinitely due to a shoulder injury, but if the team ends up back at full strength, either Alvarez or Brantley would require some extra reps in the DH slot.

That scenario would likely push Astros stalwart Yuli Gurriel into a part-time role, which may be a bitter pill for both Gurriel and the organization to swallow. However, the 38-year-old Gurriel hasn’t performed up to his previous standards, hitting at a .235/.286/.386 clip through 329 plate appearances. He’s still making loads of contact (13.4% strikeout rate), but his walk rate, power output and batted-ball quality have all declined. Gurriel is popping the ball up to the infield at a higher rate than ever before and is sporting a career-low 17.9% line-drive rate. A Gold Glove winner at first base just last season, Gurriel has also posted negative marks in both DRS (-2) and OAA (-5).

Gurriel is still hitting lefties at a respectable .258/.298/.443 clip (110 wRC+), and he’s a fixture in the Houston clubhouse, so it stands to reason that he’d stick on the roster and be relied upon in a part-time role even if the Astros were to acquire Bell or another first base upgrade. It’s also worth pointing out that Gurriel has shown some signs of life after an awful run in April and May; dating back to June 1, he’s batted .255/.318/.418 in 154 plate appearances. That’s still a far cry from both his typical production and the numbers Bell has posted over the past couple seasons, however.

Bell is earning $10MM this season and will be a free agent at season’s end. The Astros’ $174MM payroll is down notably from last season’s franchise-record $188MM mark, and they’re more than $30MM shy of the new $230MM luxury-tax barrier. As such, there shouldn’t be any financial roadblocks to stand in the way of a deal if the two parties can agree on the young talent that would need to go back to Washington in return.

Mets Exploring Trade Market For DH Options

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The Mets are exploring the market for a number of bats as they look to upgrade over what has been a generally unproductive tandem of Dominic Smith and J.D. Davis at designated hitter, reports Andy Martino of SNY. Nationals sluggers Josh Bell and Nelson Cruz, Colorado’s C.J. Cron and Baltimore’s Trey Mancini (as previously reported) are among the names in play.

Metsmerized’s Michael Mayer reported this week that the Mets have also had talks with the Pirates about left-handed-hitting Daniel Vogelbach, who is signed to a highly affordable $1MM contract with a $1.5MM option for the 2023 season. FanSided’s Robert Murray hears the same, though Murray notes that there are multiple teams inquiring about Vogelbach’s availability (as is surely the case with the Mets’ other reported targets). Martino describes conversations with the Pirates regarding Vogelbach as “active.”

The 29-year-old Vogelbach would surely be viewed as a platoon option in Queens, as he’s never hit lefties well and has again posted an inept .141/.267/.156 batting line against them. However, he’s crushed righties to the tune of a .260/.365/.532 batting line, swatting a dozen homers, nine doubles and a triple in just 203 trips to the plate when holding the platoon advantage this year. Vogelbach’s has long been a productive hitter against righties, and he’s not all that far removed from a smashing a career-high 30 homers with the 2019 Mariners.

There’s some appeal to Vogelbach beyond the strong platoon work and next year’s affordable club option, too. He entered the year with three-plus years of Major League service time, meaning that even after a club exercises next year’s option — which seems likely, whether it’s the Pirates, Mets or another trade partner — he’s still controllable through the 2024 season. Vogelbach would be arbitration-eligible in the 2023-24 offseason before reaching free agency in the 2024-25 offseason.

The 29-year-old Bell is hitting .311/.390/.504 with 13 home runs this season, striking out at a career-low 13.5% and drawing walks at a hearty 10.7% pace. He’s earning $10MM this season, and while the Nationals might be wary of sending long-term pieces to the division-rival Mets (e.g. Juan Soto), Bell is a free agent at the end of the year, which probably eliminates any such concerns from Washington’s vantage point.

It’s a similar story for the 42-year-old Cruz, who’s earning $15MM this season and has a mutual option for the 2023 campaign. Those are rarely exercised by both parties, however, and players with mutual options are generally considered rentals for this reason. Cruz got out to an awful start in 2022 but has produced a solid .283/.362/.425 batting line in his past 247 plate appearances. He’s only homered six times in that span, showing a decidedly uncharacteristic lack of power, but Cruz has still been a productive hitter if you’re willing to set aside a slow start to the year.

As for Cron, it’s understandable that the Mets would harbor interest, but a deal seems unlikely to come together. Although the Rockies are 19 games out of the NL West lead and six and a half games back of the NL’s third Wild Card spot, the organization has opted not to deal what look to be on-paper trade candidates for years now. Ownership in Denver steadfastly believes the foundation of a contending club is in place, as evidenced by the glut of extensions doled out over the past year (as well as the surprising signing of Kris Bryant to a seven-year deal).

One need look no further than last year’s deadline to see that Cron isn’t likely to be moved. The Rockies were in this position a year ago, when Cron was playing on a cheap one-year deal and looked like a slam-dunk candidate to be flipped to a contender. The Rockies instead kept him and inked Cron to a two-year, $14.5MM extension. To their credit, Cron has been overwhelming bargain, hitting .298/.350/.552 with 21 homers this year. That’s outstanding production, but if the Rox balked at moving him a year ago when he was a free-agent-to-be, it only stands to reason that they’d be further dissuaded from trading him now (even though the contract likely makes him more appealing to potential suitors). General manager Bill Schmidt said just last week that he does not expect to be a major seller this summer.

Any of the names listed here would likely serve as an upgrade over the combined .219/.300/.368 batting line that Mets designated hitters have put together this season. That production includes 90 very productive plate appearances by Pete Alonso as DH, which only underscores how rough the non-Alonso DH options have been at Citi Field this season.

As for what would happen with the current DH options the Mets have in-house, it somewhat unsurprisingly seems as though a change of scenery may be in the fold. Smith was just placed on the injured list due to an ankle sprain but could return by the middle of next week. The Cubs and Red Sox are among the teams to have talked to the Mets about a potential trade. Martino writes that the Mets are “working to trade Smith,” adding that Davis could be moved as well.

Smith has struggled in 2021-22 after a hugely productive 2019-20 showing, while Davis’ power numbers have tumbled this year despite eye-popping exit velocity and hard-hit numbers. Both are controllable for two years beyond the current campaign, which might make them appealing to a club that’s not a current contender but can afford to give Smith or Davis consistent playing time while showing a bit more patience than the Mets have the luxury of doing in a competitive setting atop the NL East.

This Trade Candidate Is Peaking At The Right Time

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Josh Bell’s first few seasons in the majors were solid, though not elite. From 2016 to 2018, he hit 41 home runs, walked in 12.1% of his plate appearances and struck out in just 17.7% of them. Overall, he produced a batting line of .260/.348/.436, producing a wRC+ of 110, or 10% above league average.

Then came the big breakout. In 2019, Bell hit 37 long balls and produced a slash line of .261/.347/.476 for a wRC+ of 135. His walk and strikeout rates stayed around his customary pace at 12.1% and 19.2%, respectively. He accumulated 2.9 wins above replacement in the estimation of FanGraphs and 2.8 in the eyes of Baseball Reference.

However, he wasn’t able to maintain that tremendous showing. In the shortened 2020 season, a few things went in the wrong direction for Bell. His walk rate dropped a few points to 9.9% and his strikeouts ticked up to 26.5%. He hit just eight homers and hit .226/.305/.364 for a wRC+ of 77, or 23% below league average. Bell’s season was just one of many things that went wrong for the Pirates that year, as they finished 19-41, the worst team in baseball. They decided it was time to empty the roster for a rebuild, trading Bell to the Nationals before also trading away Joe Musgrove and Jameson Taillon.

The Nationals were surely hoping that 2020 was just a small-sample fluke and that Bell would return to the form he showed in 2019. At first, it may have appeared that they made a miscalculation. At the end of April last year, Bell was hitting just .113/.200/.264. As the size of the slump started to grow, it was fair to wonder if 2019 was the fluke, perhaps a product of the “juiced balls” that year.

However, once the calendar flipped, Bell also flipped and hasn’t looked back since. From May onwards last year, he hit 25 homers, walked in 11.8% of his plate appearances and struck out in just 16.5% of them. Overall, he slashed .279/.364/.501 for a wRC+ of 129. This year, he’s not only carried that over but has even found a new gear. Through 87 games, he has a 10.9% walk rate, 13.6% strikeout rate and is hitting .304/.386/.491. His wRC+ of 143 indicates he’s been 43% better than the league average hitter, a number which places him 22nd among qualified hitters across the league, sandwiched between J.D. Martinez and Jose Abreu. He’s produced 2.2 fWAR and 3.1 bWAR already, with almost three months still left to play.

And it’s not just at the plate where Bell is showing positive strides. An outfielder as a prospect, Bell was never really considered an excellent fielder, though he did have a good arm for right field. He transitioned to first base once he reached the upper levels of the minors and was still adjusting to the position as he reached the majors. Defensive Runs Saved gave him -6 at first base in 2016, Bell’s first season, wherein he only played the position in 23 games. In 2017, his first full campaign, he came in at -5 DRS, followed by -8, -6 and a -1 in the shortened season. Last year, he was able to keep himself to a -1 over a full season and in positive territory this year, with 3 DRS so far. Outs Above Average generally agrees with Bell’s defensive progress, having given Bell a negative number each year until a +4 last year and +1 so far this year.

The Nats started a roster overhaul last year, trading away most of their marquee players. They held onto Bell at last year’s deadline and through the offseason, a decision which might pay off handsomely, given that Bell seems to just continue growing as a player. The teardown has unsurprisingly guided them to the National League basement with a record of 30-58, with only the A’s keeping them from being last in all the majors. With no return to competition in sight and Bell just a few months from free agency, he is their best trade chip going into the August 2 deadline. (Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo has emphatically stated that Juan Soto will not be traded.)

Bell is almost exclusively a first baseman at this point his career, having played just 26 games in the outfield, 16 of which came way back in his 2016 debut. That limits the number of teams who could acquire him theoretically, but with the universal DH implemented this year, it’s hard to think of a team that couldn’t fit Bell’s bat into their lineup somehow. He’s also a switch-hitter without drastic platoon splits, making him appealing to clubs regardless of which side of the plate they’re looking to improve. For his career, he’s got a 123 wRC+ as a lefty and a 105 as a righty. This year, it’s 147 and 136, respectively.

The Mets are known to be looking for a DH, giving consideration to Bell and his teammate Nelson Cruz. The Red Sox aren’t getting much from their Franchy Cordero and Bobby Dalbec platoon. They also make sense as a team interested in a rental with prospect Triston Casas currently injured but likely to be in the mix next year. With Josh Naylor dealing with a nagging injury, the Guardians have been using a lot of Owen Miller and Franmil Reyes, neither of whom are really standing in Bell’s way. The Blue Jays have Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at first but don’t really have a regular DH, using it on a rotating basis to players throughout the lineup. The Brewers need some extra thump in their lineup and have been rotating their outfielders through the DH slot. Even if you think of a team where Bell doesn’t fit, a sudden injury can create an opening, such as the Astros suddenly having both Yordan Alvarez and Michael Brantley on the IL.

Financially, Bell is playing out this season with a $10MM salary. Since we’re past the halfway point of the season, there’s less than $5MM to be paid out. That’s not a number that should scare away many teams, and even if it does, there’s no reason the Nats can’t eat most of that money in order to get a greater prospect package in return. Their roster teardown has resulted in a much lower payroll than recent seasons, giving them plenty of financial flexibility.

MLBTR recently released a list of the top 50 trade candidates, with Bell coming in at #3. Given his excellent year from both sides of the plate, his improvements in the field, his modest salary and his basement-dwelling team, everything is lined up for a headline-grabbing trade in the coming weeks. The Nats will surely net themselves some interesting young players to help them rebuild in the years to come, the acquiring team will get themselves an excellent bat to plug into their lineup for the stretch run, and Bell will potentially get a chance to play in the postseason for the first time in his career before heading into free agency as a 30-year-old, at the top of his game.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Mets Have Interest In Nelson Cruz

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The Mets are among the teams with interest in Nationals slugger Nelson Cruz, reports the New York Post’s Jon Heyman.

At this stage of his career, Cruz is strictly a designated hitter. Apart from one game at first base with the Rays in 2021, he hasn’t played the field since 2018. The Mets have frequently used their DH slot to give their regulars a half-day off, though the closest things they have to regular designated hitters are J.D. Davis and Dominic Smith. Both players have shown offensive prowess in the past but are having down years so far in 2022, making it fairly logical that the Mets would be thinking about upgrades.

Through 128 plate appearances coming into tonight, Smith is hitting .221/.297/.327 for a wRC+ of 83, a far cry from the 134 he put up in 2019 and the 166 during the shortened 2020 campaign. It’s a second straight season of diminished production for Smith, as he also put up a line of .244/.304/.363 last year, 86 wRC+. As for Davis, he had a wRC+ between 118 and 137 in the previous three seasons but is down to 98 this year, with a line of .240/.328/.338 coming into tonight’s action. There’s a bit more reason for optimism in the case of Davis, as he’s still hitting the ball hard. Statcast gives him good marks on basically every batted ball metric, including placing him in the 98th percentile in terms of average exit velocity. However, it seems the Mets are willing to look outside the organization to consider a change.

The Nationals underwent a big roster teardown last year, trading away many of their best players for prospects. In the offseason, they signed a number of veterans to one-year deals, with Cruz getting the largest and the most notable of the contracts. With the club knowing they were entering a noncompetitive rebuild year, his $15MM deal was clearly designed with a midseason trade in mind. As expected, the club is currently sporting a recording of 30-55, the second-worst in the National League.

However, Cruz isn’t exactly holding up his end of the bargain, as he’s hitting just .241/.322/.369 for a wRC+ of 94. That’s fairly similar to the production he put up with the Rays after last year’s midseason trade from the Twins. His batting line in a Rays’ uniform last year was .226/.283/.442, 96 wRC+. That means it’s been almost a full season’s worth of below average offensive production for the 42-year-old.

It’s still likely that some team takes a shot on Cruz based on his track record, but it’s unlikely the Nats will get the huge return they may have envisioned. Last year, the Twins sent Cruz and Calvin Faucher to the Rays in exchange for Joe Ryan and Drew Strotman. That deal seems to have worked out very well for the Twins, with Ryan emerging as a key piece of their rotation, though Strotman is struggling in the minors. Cruz was hitting .294/.370/.537 at the time of the deal for a wRC+ of 141, which surely helped the Twins net a return that the Nats are unlikely to match.

Since the Nats are so far out of contention and Cruz is heading back into free agency at season’s end, it’s likely that they will take the best prospect package they can find. That means it’s unlikely the Mets and Nats make perfect trading partners, as Heyman’s report notes that the Mets hope to hang onto all of their top prospects. This lines up with reporting from Bob Nightengale of USA Today from a few days ago, which suggested the Mets would prefer to take on large contracts as opposed to giving up important young players. That would seem to suggest the two clubs have misaligned priorities, though it’s possible the Nats aren’t able to get top prospects from any team, based on Cruz’s diminished production over the past year. Heyman adds this lack of willingness to deal top prospects makes it unlikely the Mets land either Josh Bell or Willson Contreras, but makes Cruz and Trey Mancini better fits. The Mets’ interest in Mancini was reported last week.

Given the rebuild, the Nats’ payroll is the lowest it’s been in about a decade, outside the shortened 2020 campaign, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. That presumably means they don’t need to move Cruz just for financial reasons. For their part, the Mets are right up against the new fourth luxury tax line of $290MM. Jason Martinez of Roster Resource estimates that the Mets have already surpassed the line, calculating their luxury tax number to be $290.1MM. The aggressive spending has worked out for them thus far, as they are currently 51-31, trailing only the Dodgers among NL teams and giving them a 2 1/2 game lead over Atlanta in the East. They will surely look to be aggressive between now and the August 2 trade deadline in order to supplement their roster for a postseason run.

Injury Notes: Bell, Voit, deGrom, Walker

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Josh Bell left today’s 5-2 Nationals loss to the Giants due to tightness in his right hamstring.  Bell walked and advanced to third base during the bottom of the second, but was replaced in the field for the top of the third inning.  Nationals manager Davey Martinez said Bell was undergoing an MRI, which would mark the second MRI of the week for the first baseman after tests were negative on his left knee.  Soreness in that left knee also forced Bell to make an early exit from Washington’s game on Wednesday.

Given that previous injury, Martinez told reporters (including Bobby Blanco of MASNsports.com) that “I want to be cautious” with Bell’s status.  More will be known when the MRI results are in, but the Nationals might still opt to sit Bell on Sunday with an off-day coming up Monday, in the hopes that two days of rest will get him ready for Tuesday’s game with the Marlins.  Apart from Bell and Juan Soto, the Nats are almost entirely off to a slow offensive start, so any time missed for Bell (batting .345/.446/.509 over his first 67 plate appearances) is a big loss for the D.C. lineup.

More injury news from around baseball….

  • Luke Voit has been bothered by a lingering right biceps problems, the Padres first baseman told The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Jeff Saunders and other reporters.  With only a .143/.315/.167 slash line over his first 54 PA, Voit bluntly described himself as “a waste of an at-bat right now.  I’m not doing the team any good.  I played through injuries last year and it’s really hard.”  Voit isn’t in tonight’s lineup, and while manager Bob Melvin indicated that Voit could be available to pinch-hit, a trip to the injured list might be necessary.
  • In an update on Jacob deGrom, the Mets ace underwent MRI and CT scans yesterday, manager Buck Showalter told The New York Post’s Mike Puma and other reporters.  The MRI came a few days earlier than initially expected, though regardless, it doesn’t seem as though the Mets will have a plan of action in place anyway until doctors have fully reviewed the results.  A stress reaction in deGrom’s right scapula during Spring Training resulted in a four-week shutdown, and these test results will mark the next step in the right-hander’s recovery process.  If all goes well, deGrom could be cleared to start throwing, and a possible timetable could be floated for deGrom’s 2022 debut.
  • Taijuan Walker is much closer to his return, as Showalter told reporters (including MLB.com’s Jake Rill) that the right-hander is tentatively set to face the Phillies on either Friday or Saturday.  Walker tossed two innings in his first Mets start of the season but has since been on the 10-day IL recovering from shoulder bursitis.  After throwing a side session yesterday, Walker is now lined up for either a minor league rehab start or a simulated game on Tuesday.

Latest On Nationals’ Extension Talks

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It doesn’t appear as though the Nationals have had any in-depth talks with Josh Bell about a long-term contract, as president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo told The Washington Post’s Jesse Dougherty (Twitter links) that Juan Soto is still the top focus for an extension.  There have been more “discussions” with Soto, but until that situation is settled, any negotiations with Bell will seemingly have to wait.

Bell avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $10MM salary for 2022, his final season of arb eligibility.  Since most players prefer to not talk contract during the season, the Nats might be left with a pretty limited window of time to work out a new deal with Bell, possibly just from the end of Washington’s season to the official start date of free agency.  Furthermore, Bell is represented by the Boras Corporation, and it is rare to see Scott Boras clients agree to extensions so close to a trip to the open market.

Since Soto is under team control through 2024, Bell is technically the more pressing concern, and yet it is easy to understand why the Nationals are prioritizing a new Soto deal.  It’s fair to guess that a Soto extension would be the single largest contract in baseball history, as Soto (also a Boras client) has already turned down a 13-year, $350MM offer from the Nats earlier this winter.  Soto is still only 23 years old and already has a phenomenal track record of success, so it isn’t hard to imagine Boras wanting to set new contractual benchmarks for both total value and average annual value.

Bell, meanwhile, had a strong performance in his own right during his first season in D.C.  The first baseman was one of many Nationals players sidelined by a COVID-19 outbreak in April, but after a slow start, Bell caught fire over the last four months and finished with 27 home runs and a .261/.347/.476 slash line over 568 plate appearances.

Should Bell repeat this performance in 2022, it’ll line him up for a nice multi-year pact in free agency.  Bell turns 30 in August and he is somewhat limited as a primary first baseman, though he did line up in both corner outfield positions on occasion last season.  With the universal DH now in place, Boras can now fully market Bell to National League teams that might have previously been unsure about his fielding future — as well, defensive metrics indicated that Bell’s 2021 glovework was the best of his career.

Whether Bell’s future is in Washington or not remains to be seen, depending on the state of the Nats’ minor rebuild.  There is obvious benefit to retaining Soto as the face of the franchise, but locking Bell up to an extension or re-signing him in free agency would be a clear sign that the Nationals plan to contend again sooner rather than later.  Such a move would also undoubtedly factor into Soto’s decision process, as Soto has been clear that he wants to play for a winning team.  Plus, if an extension with Soto doesn’t become a reality, the Nats might adopt a win-now approach to capitalize on Soto’s prime years while they still have him.

Considering that D.C. has topped the $200MM payroll mark as recently as 2019, the team does have the resources to extend both Soto and Bell.  Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin take up an outsized chunk of future payroll, but they are also the only Nationals players guaranteed money beyond the 2022 season.

Nationals Avoid Arbitration With Juan Soto, Josh Bell

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The Nationals have avoided arbitration with star outfielder Juan Soto and first baseman Josh Bell, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (Twitter links). Soto will make $17.1MM, while Bell will collect an even $10MM.

It’s a massive second-year number for Soto, who had been projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $16.2MM mark. That’s a reflection of the 23-year-old’s otherworldly track record, as he’s coming off as good a year at the plate as anyone in the game. Soto hit .313/.465/.534 with 29 home runs in 654 plate appearances. That earned him a notable bump over his 2021 salary of $8.5MM. Soto reached arbitration last winter as a Super Two and is controllable through 2024.

Bell’s $10MM salary is an exact match for Swartz’s projection. The former Pirate is coming off a decent first season in the District, posting a .261/.347/.476 line with 27 homers. After a pedestrian first half, Bell caught fire down the stretch. He’ll try to keep that going this season and set himself up for a nice payday next winter, when he’ll reach the open market for the first time.

With those agreements in place, the Nationals now have around $135MM on the books, according to Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That’s nearly $50MM lower than last year’s season-opening mark, as the Nats kicked off a retooling effort last summer.

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