The 2025 Nats trade deadline has come and gone, and I have to admit, I’m surprised at how “well” the team did in moving its assets. In five separate deals the team moved nearly every one of its expiring contracts or useful-but-spare parts pieces and netted a ton of actual prospect depth along the way.
Earlier this month I previewed what we had to offer teams, and I went over a rather pessimistic take on what I thought we’d get in return for players. As it turned out, of everyone discussed, the only three non-injured guys we didn’t manage to move were Salazar, Bell, and deJong (none really a surprise given their overall performance for the season), and then on top of that we managed to move an outfielder in Alex Call who, while we like him, was certainly spare parts given the massive amount of OF depth we have in the system (in no particular order, Wood, Crews, Young, Lile, Hassell, Pinckney all at AAA or higher).
Lets take a quick run through the moves and talk about the value of the prospects we got back, which now populate a big chunk of our top 30 on the MLBpipeline board. As the day progressed and as of right now, our Big Board is updated with all transactions, with all newly acquired players assigned to their new levels.
Executive Summary: we traded 6 guys off the active roster, got back 10 prospects, 6 of which now sit in our top 30 as per mlbpipeline’s rankings. As I list them below i’ll put their new spot in our top 30.
Trade #1: Amed Rosario traded to NYY for #24 RHP reliever Clayton Beeter, OF Browm Martinez. Beeter is a former 2nd rounder, setup type guy, 40-man roster already, and is in AAA now but may get called up since we suddenly have some bullpen spots open. Big arm, lots of Ks, lots of walks. Martinez is the proverbial lottery ticket, an 18yr old in DSL who we immediately put onto the 60-day DL upon acquisition.
Trade #2: Chafin & Garcia traded to LAA for LHP reliever Jake Eder, 1B Sam Brown. Neither Eder or Brown are top 30 prospects; Brown in AAA with some MLB time this year, while Brown is repeating AA this year. Still, not bad return for two guys we signed off the veteran/MLFA heap in May and July respectively.
Trade #3: Mike Soroka traded to CHC for #11 OF Christian Franklin, #13 SS Ronny Cruz. Franklin heads to AAA, is an undersized corner type (similar to Lile) and adds to our existing OF depth, kind of surprising acquisition given what we already have in that regard. Cruz seems to be the prize, a 3rd round prep kid drafted last year, given decent money and who has solid power grades despite being a SS.
Trade #4: Kyle Finnegan traded to Det for #23 RHP starter Josh Randall and RHP starter RJ Sales. Randall is the prize; a 3rd rounder starter who heads to High-A sinker/slider guy with a 4.18 ERA this year in Low-A and who had just been moved up to High-A (he was assigned to Wilmington for us). Sales was a 10th rounder last year who doesn’t have he same upside, though he has far better numbers in Low-A this year than Randall and reports to our Low-A directly.
Trade #5: Alex Call traded to LAD for RHP starter #10 Sean Paul Linan and RHP starter #12 Eriq Swan. Linan seems to be the prize here, a 20-yr old IFA with really good K numbers in High-A this year to go along with a 2.65ERA. They even called him up for 2 spot starts in AAA (he got shelled). But don’t sleep on former 4th rounder Swan, a strong arm type who’s relatively new to pitching but has effortless upper 90s velocity.
So, to summarize, here’s where these 10 guys are reporting:
- AAA: OF Franklin, RHP reliever Beeter, LHP reliever Eder
- AA: 1B Brown
- High-A: three new SPs Randall, Swan, Linan
- Low-A: new SP Sales
- FCL: SS Cruz
- DSL: OF Brown
Possible Minor League impacts:
AAA: Beeter and Eder are both 40-man guys and we’re suddenly down a bunch of players at the MLB level so they may get callups soon. With Call’s trade, Hassell likely gets called up so Franklin can go right into starting lineup in Rochester.
AA: Brown joins a team that just promoted 1B only Boissiere and who has 1B-only Naranjo on the roster as well; not too much playing time to split when you have three primary 1Bs. Naranjo may be odd-man out, either going back to High-A or getting released since he’s a MLFA with little investment.
High-A: Three new SPs, all of whom are decent prospects, will stress that rotation as it is made up right now, especially since the team just promoted both Tejada and Garcia. There’s just not enough innings to go around in Wilmington right now and something will have to give. Kent isn’t going anywhere, though he’s showing signs of fatigue. Tolman is kind of a swingman type but has great numbers. Sthele is a fan favorite but may be topped out and could move to the pen. They’ve already moved out Arias and Caceres. Should be interesting to see how this rotation shakes out.
Low-A: Also just added three new arms via promotion in Sullivan, Farias, and Feliz and now they have 8 starters for 5 spots. There’s not an obvious existing candidate to dump out of the rotation to make way necessarily.
FCL: well, we just assigned our $8.2M SS Willits to FCL; Cruz isn’t playing above him. We also have $2.5M SS Coy Jones there. Maybe Cruz and Jones become 2B and 3B and get SS time here and there.
DSL: Brown immediately to 60-day DL, a curious acquisition to get someone who’s hurt upon arrival.
Judgement: love the pouring in of arms. Six arms, some of whom immediately help in the bullpen, others who might stick as starters or who add to the roster of possible relievers. Why has our bullpen been so bad lately? Because we have not had the pipeline of starters-turned-relievers that we need from the last few drafts. Now we have a bunch more candidates for that.
All in all, a solid trade deadline haul.