Cabrera is back. Photo via newsday
It was a busy Saturday for Nats GM Mike Rizzo. In quick succession we heard about three moves:
- The team re-signs 2B/3B Asdrubal Cabrera, 1yr $2.5M.
- The team signs 2B Starlin Castro to a 2yr/$12M deal
- The team previously signed RHP David Hernandez sometime in Dec 2019 to a minor league deal (which was just announced on Baseball America)
Cabrera was awful for Texas last year and got outright released; he lit it up for Washington, mercifully taking over for the completely ineffective Brian Dozier and lighting it up for the team down the stretch (slash line for DC last year post-signing: .323/.404/.565). Cabrera played 3B for Texas but mostly 2B for DC; right now he’s your starting 3B opening day save any other move.
Castro clearly is the starting 2B; he moved there a few years ago, played it exclusively for several years but moved to 3B last season to make room for a prospect. He was reportedly telling teams in FA he was only interested in playing 2B … so we have our starting 2B. His signing seems to clarify what the team’s infield will be looking like come April. He has two straight years of right around league average OPS+, but in 2019 he spiked homers, hitting 22 of them on the year playing a lot of games in pitcher-friendly NL East stadiums.
Hernandez was a great middle reliever in 2018 for Cincinnati, but blew up last year and signs a MLFA deal in an attempt to get back to the majors. I like this as a low-risk/high reward move for a team always looking for the next 6th/7th inning RH reliever.
With these moves … as per the updated Big Board, your starting lineup come 4/1/20 looks like this (here’s a guess as to the lineup)
- Eaton (RF)
- Turner (SS)
- Soto (LF)
- Kendrick (1B)
- Castro (2B)
- Cabrera (3B)
- Suzuki (C)
- Robles (CF)
- Pitcher
That’s … a big step back from what we showed offensively last year, obviously. The loss of Anthony Rendon in the middle of the order is pretty apparent.
Is this a playoff team?
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Cabrera becomes the fourth 2019 team member/FA to re-sign with the team, joining Stephen Strasburg, Howie Kendrick and Yan Gomes. Pretty much the entire industry assumes Ryan Zimmerman is re-signing to be a bench bat as well. So a lot of the veteran crew that was credited with helping the team win in October is now back.
Is this a good thing?
The oldest team in the majors last year has now resigned FAs who will be playing in their
- age 34 year (Cabrera)
- 32 (Gomes)
- 31 (Strasburg) and
- 36 (Kendrick).
They join other presumed starters and key relievers north of 30 in :
- Kurt Suzuki (2020 will be his age 36 year)
- Max Scherzer (35),
- Anibal Sanchez (36)
- Adam Eaton (31)
- Sean Doolittle (33)
- Hunter Strickland and Roenis Elias (both 31)
- Wil Harris (35)
- Starlin Castro (30).
Um. That’s a lot guys on the wrong side of 30. And a lot of assumptions that the production like we got out of Cabrera (143 OPS+) continues into 2020 if he’s indeed the starting 3B.
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Oh, ps: all appropriate tabs in the Big Board are now updated for these transactions. We’re now at 36/40 on the 40-man roster. New payroll estimate is $185,452,709, leaving us $22,547,291 under the cap for 2020. For all of you still holding out hope for Josh Donaldson … you should stop. He’s soliciting 4yr deals north of $100M; the numbers don’t add up. If this team has $22M and change left and are not going over, then we’re out of the Donaldson mix.
I’m not sure what’s next. Does the team pursue a trade for a 3B? Clearly they don’t want to give up Victor Robles in a Kris Bryant trade (and I don’t blame them, whether or not they have one year or two of his services). Maybe we’re going to see some Rizzo trade magic coming soon.