Barring a turnaround over the next couple months, the 7-15 Royals will be prime candidates to sell several veterans prior to the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. One of those players could be closer Kelvin Herrera, who’s already drawing the Nationals’ interest, reports FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal (video link).
The Nationals were connected to multiple high-profile closers in the offseason, including Kenley Jansen in free agency and David Robertson via the trade route, but elected to begin the year with in-house options. That hasn’t gone swimmingly thus far for Washington, which has seen Opening Day closer Blake Treinen, current closer Shawn Kelley and fellow late-game option Koda Glover post disappointing results. The best of three has been Glover, but the hard-throwing rookie landed on the disabled list with a hip impingement earlier this week after allowing four earned runs on seven hits and a walk, with six strikeouts, in 8 2/3 innings. Meanwhile, in 19 combined frames, Treinen and Kelley have yielded 16 earned runs on 10 walks and 25 hits, with 21 strikeouts, and have blown two of eight save chances. What’s more, given Kelley’s history as a two-time Tommy John surgery recipient, the Nats are wary of using the 33-year-old on consecutive days, having done so just once this season.
At 16-8, Washington doesn’t look like a team with many weaknesses (though center fielder Adam Eaton’s knee injury is troubling), but its bullpen has been a glaring issue in April. The unit’s 6.08 ERA and 5.09 FIP rank toward the bottom of the majors, so it would behoove the Nationals to bolster their relief corps if its performance doesn’t improve in the coming months. Herrera would theoretically help the Nats do that, as he has typically been a premier reliever since debuting in 2012.
In eight innings this season, the 27-year-old Herrera has only allowed two earned runs on three hits and a walk, albeit with just five strikeouts. His velocity is at its usual level, though, and both his hard-throwing ways and history of positive results mean he should bring back a quality return for the Royals in a trade. Rosenthal contends that the Nationals have enough well-regarded position player prospects to swing a deal for Herrera, who’s controllable via arbitration through next season, citing three outfielders – the newly promoted Rafael Bautista, Juan Soto and Andrew Stevenson – as potential trade chips. Both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline place the 18-year-old Soto and Stevenson, 22, among the Nats’ five best prospects.
Would love it if the DBacks traded for him but I doubt they have any prospects KC would be interested in.
the nationals don’t have a farm system left to trade for anything , traded their top prospects for eaton
he’s an FA so the price isn’t as high as say Chapman was. it’s essentially Melancon 2.0
Chapman was a FA last year.
Herrera has one more year of arbitration.
Both Chapman and Melancon were free agents this past offseason. The reason the price isn’t as high as Chapman is because Herrera hasn’t been a closer for nearly as long as Chapman had been, not to mention the fact that Chapman throws harder than anyone in baseball
Angelsfanforlife just said the Nats dont have a farm system left? Ironic.
Wrong! The Nat’s traded away Gioltio who At best is 3 guy in any rotation! He’ll be a big disappoint! Count on it! 5 years of Eaton was well werth it! Just like 7 years of J Werth was!! The only player the W Sox got that will be through trades that will pan out is Moncada. And as Sean Spicer would say PERIOD!!!
They still have Robles,Fedde and Soto.
Trying to lower the price on DRob.
Or…they actually have interest in Herrera?
Royals will ask for Soto. That’s a guaranteed proposal. Otherwise they will have to package something together since Robles is pretty much untouchable it looks like.
Package Cain and Herrera because of eaton’s injury
That could be a scenario for the Nats for sure.
Package could work. Depends on Royals’ asking price obviously. They can’t sell Herrera similar to how some of the earlier posts show. I’d expect something similar to what the Nats gave the Pirates last year for half a year of Melancon. Herrera has 20 career saves and 15 career blown saves after being a career setup man until now. The Nats are the team that have seen dominant setup men fail miserably at the closer role, so I’d be weary to think they’d buy too high for him.