Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon has been among the majors’ most valuable players since his first full season, 2014, having recorded the league’s eighth-highest fWAR (26.4). The 28-year-old is now enjoying another magnificent campaign, one that may end with career-best offensive numbers, as he has slashed .331/.416/.669 (181 wRC+) with eight home runs in 137 plate appearances. At 19-27, the Nationals haven’t been able to capitalize on Rendon’s excellence this season – nor have they even won a playoff series during his career – and time may be running out for the club to take advantage of his presence.
Rendon is one of the game’s premier impending free agents, a player who’s likely on a collision course with a nine-figure payday over the next few months, and is far from certain to remain in Washington. Rendon has expressed interest in continuing with the Nationals, who have made an effort to extend him, but the team hasn’t been able to close the gap with the Boras Corporation client thus far. With Rendon still not under contract beyond this season and the July 31 trade deadline inching closer, the Nationals may have to decide soon whether to keep the homegrown star or deal him.
If the Nationals rebound from their shaky start and emerge as contenders over the next two months, chances are they won’t consider moving an unsigned Rendon. Otherwise, should the Nats’ woes continue, general manager Mike Rizzo could think about parting with him. The executive was in a similar position last year with Bryce Harper, whom he elected not to give up during the summer even though Washington was treading water and the outfielder was approaching free agency. Rizzo spurned interest from the Astros, Indians and Dodgers (and perhaps other unreported teams), in part because he wanted to continue working toward a long-term deal with Harper. In the end, though, the Nationals neither prevented Harper from testing the market – where he secured the largest contract ever for a free agent (13 years, $330MM) – nor exiting D.C.
Harper joined the division-rival Phillies this past offseason and all the Nationals got for their trouble was a draft pick after the fourth round, given that they exceeded the luxury tax in 2018 and he rejected their qualifying offer. This time, if the Nationals retain Rendon through the season and he walks in free agency in lieu of accepting a QO, they’re likely to receive a more appealing pick (a selection after Competitive Balance Round B). While the Nationals are only $3MM-plus under the $206MM tax threshold, ownership does not want to surpass that mark this season.
Whether draft compensation for Rendon’s departure would be worth more than the package the Nats would acquire for him in a trade is something Rizzo will have to determine. But it’s possible Rendon would be to this season’s deadline what Manny Machado was to last year’s. Machado’s then-team, the Orioles, oversaw a bidding war for the impending free agent and wound up accepting an offer of five young players from the Dodgers. Ideally for the Nationals, they’ll do what the Orioles couldn’t and lock up their top position player in advance of the deadline. If not, though, Rizzo may have an important choice to make by then.
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Nats need to sign him. Harper was expendable; Rendon is not
Phillies will be in on him too.
i dont think too heavily with how well Bohm has been doing.
Yeah, but it remains to be seen if Bohm sticks at 3rd. They say that he’s really been working on his athleticism and trying to stick at hit corner, but they’ve been saying he might end up in the OF since he was drafted. It’ll be exciting to watch this all unfold, especially if he keeps hitting the way he has!
I was happy when Seattle passed on him and Jackson fell into our lap. See how much I know. Draft picks are such a crap shoot.
The bats might have a fire sale at this rate
Rendon is really the piece to determine if Nats intended to keep working for it or do a rebuild.
with the pitching they have, they won’t need to do a full on rebuild. They could do a Yankees like rebuild and be right back in the thick of it in a couple of years.
I think they’d rather win championships like the Red Sox.
They need to have their farm come up big like the Yankees did and make some Savy trades. Losing Rendon will set them back
White Sox please
Why would a rebuilding team trade for him mid season when they can wait 3 months and sign him?
You give yourself a chance at a test drive before a big investment and if you’ve had a longer rebuild you should have a lot of prospects you don’t have room for and thus can overpay without it hurting your core group.
You also have a much better chance at resigning the player without beating the second best offer by 50 million dollars.
You obviously wait if you can but after missing out on Harper and Machado I think the White sox might be a team that would make that move.
Youre not paying millions just to test drive a car to see if you like it. Especially when you can’t get the warranty on the car.
White Sox trade for him it costs top tier prospects AND they can’t QO him. Not a good idea.
im a sox fan and you wait until the offseason.
Rendon and Max for Miggy and Florial.
They would have to throw some cash in for Max.
Not even close to enough.
Bird and Ellsbury….
Rizzo wanted to deal Harper to Houston. Ownership wouldn’t let him.
I can see not letting him go to Houston.
It’s one thing to trade a guy (I support trading these guys prior to free agency) it’s another thing to trade him to the best team in the game.
They should have traded Harper “for the Best Possible Return”….regardless of which team it was.
Harper was headed for FA….and there’s just no legitimate connection between “FA Money” and the team they play for.
If the Astros decided to pony up and pay Harper Big Money before he elected FA…..then they would have done the same in FA. Moot point.
What are the Nats spending 203 million salary on? It’s not that they have a powerhouse team..
The Nats are screwed in the future, which is probably why Harper wouldn’t re-sign there. They offered him a contract that didn’t finish paying him until he was like 63 years old.
They did that with Scherzer (they owe him $105M/6yrs AFTER he hits FA).
They tried to do it with Harper
They’ll try the same dumb tactic with Rendon (which is probably why he said that “they are not close”…….)
Some Contending Team will pay Dearly for his services in the 2nd Half.
Nats need to look in the “Reality Mirror” and re-tool…….
Why pay them when the team has done nothing with an all star cast?
It isn’t like paying the same guys a lot more money is going to help.
True…….hence my “re-tool” comment.
They have a decent core to work with….but it needs a lot of help.
Turner, Soto, Robles, Difo, 2 Kiebooms, maybe Stevenson….Sanchez.
Eaton has 2 very affordable option years if they need him around…or he may have value in a trade.
Time to make a couple trades to bring in some talent that can play starting in 2020.
100% agree with you on the retool, been saying this since the last playoff loss. But that core…ehh. I’d say definitely the first three, maybe Carter Kieboom. Difo is bench depth at best, Spencer Kieboom should stay down. The biggest need is young pitching, the cupboard is pretty bare there.
If they deal Rendon they should focus on arms, for sure.
Stevenson and Difo are at best bench players. Their core is Turner, Kieboom, Soto, and Robles. Anything else should be expendable. Quite frankly you can’t expect Mad max to be dominant forever. He’s 36 years old now and Stras has a checkered injury past himself. If it’s not working in 2 months then you have to think about dealing Rendon and acquiring more talent. Take a run at him again this offseason but get yourself a safety net just in case. Aside from Kieboom there’s no impact talent anywhere near the major leagues.
I have Rendon leaving regardless, I think the perfect spot for him is the angels, Trout needs another bat in the line up to protect him.
lofl
I wonder would make you say the Angels?
If Rendon is traded it’s as a rental. Angels don’t need a rental. They are years away from contending. A team like the Rays that need a star player and they want to fight off the Yanks and Red Sox. A team like the Twins that want to put a dagger in the Indians. A team like the Phillies looking to solidify their hold on the East. All three teams have solid prospects and could afford him. I think the Phillies would do it because third is a weak spot on the team.
Dont think the Nats would trade him to the Phillies. For anyone.
If the nationals are 11+ games back and the Phillies offered something crazy like Bohm and Medina I think they’d say yes. I agree for ownership to send him to philly there’d be a steep tax though.
It’s criminally incompetent to lose a player like Harper, Rendon or even a lower level all star for a comp pick. I don’t think some teams are even asking themselves the questions they should be asking themselves before making the decision which indicates ownership doesn’t even have anyone on the team that is putting any consideration into long term asset management.
You can even do this with one stupid question….
“if I trade the player can I get something in return that will be comparable to the player I am trading in terms of impact this year”
If you can (and you always can even though that is a tangential debate I have no interest in defending) then you have an obligation to consider the different packages you can get in return.
If you can make the leap of faith and accept that you pretty much always end up better off trading the star player prior to free agency (especially when you consider the opportunity to resign the player yourself) the strategy with the new CBA has to be determining if and not when you trade those players.
I suspect teams will end up finding the best value with a year and a half remaining.
I think they kept Harper as a sign that they were interested in keeping him. I can’t believe that they would go through that a second time in two seasons. Get what you can and be a bidder on the free agent market if you want him back.
Nats have a good young core and need to build off that. Rendon would be a guy to keep as I assume the Nats will decline Zimmerman’s option (they should). And Rosenthal.
Before doing anything, Rizzo needs to be relieved of his duties. Too many bad decisions outweigh the good. They need an organizational shakeup. Is Rizzo trusted by the fanbase to right the ship?
Rizzo is an excellent GM. It’s been unfortunate that the Lerners have stepped in on some of the most important decisions and the results there have not been positive. But it is their team and that’s the price you pay. Hopefully, the Nats can re-sign Rendon and maybe work on extending Trea Turner and Doolittle. They’ll have Max, Stras and Corbin under contract and Robles, Soto, Kieboom under control. Zim will be off the books. I wouldn’t mind extending him on a team friendly deal as he’s certainly benefited from the player friendly aspect of his contract. Sign Adams and Kendrick if possible as they are phenomenal off the bench and as depth. But puhleeeeease work on that bullpen. A poor BP has been a cancer on this team for too long
You need to correct the above. From your own tome came the news that the FO had a great deal in place for Harper with the Astros! Quashed not by Rizzo and the FO but by Mark Lerner the same guy who quashed the Adam Dunn for Matt Moore and others deal with the Rays. Same guy who couldn’t manage to get a AAA franchise close to DC. Same galaxy of cheap owner who will not re-up Anthony Rendon.
Mark Lerner lives in the galaxy of cheap. Not his risk-taker shopping mall inventor father, and not Mike Rizzo and the FO. Mark “galaxy of cheap” Lerner.
if the nats fall further out of any type of race, nl east or wild card, would love to see him traded out of the nl east. he kills the phillies and would be nice not to see him continue to kill the phillies. maybe an al team would need a all star 3rd baseman.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a meteor come in and kill the Phillies. Death to the Phillies and that alien green floppy dust rag you call a mascot. He’s molested and inappropriately touched more women than Donald Trump, Al Frankin, Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein combined.
So there…. nyahhhh :p
hey I bet it jealous and you are a Marlins fan. go and have fun fishing or may your are a mets I mean mess or wait a mut fan… but then again I dont care who u root for..because all fans that hate other teams fans are obnoxious little wimps.
hey I bet it jealous and you are a Marlins fan. go and have fun fishing or may your are a mets I mean mess or wait a mut fan… but then again I dont care who u root for..because all fans that hate other teams fans are obnoxious little wimps. which seems like you are. like I said you are just so jealous of what the phillies have and what your team doesn’t. wishing death to others is childish and you need help.
Rendon for Matt Carpenter and reliever prospect would work for both clubs
Seems like Karma is getting the Lerners once again. They horned-into the Orioles’ natural market acting like they knew what they were doing, spent crazily on certain agent’s players yet still never win.
Too bad, too sad. I almost feel sorry for their white wine-drinking pseudo fans from somewhere else…
Hate to break it to you, but the Lerners weren’t the owners when the Expos were moved to DC. MLB was the caretaker at the time and the first ownership group was run by Stan Kasten. The Lerners only bought in after the Dominican age scandal the Nats got caught up in.