San Francisco Giants: Possible trade partners for Madison Bumgarner

Washington Nationals

With Bryce Harper likely headed elsewhere after the 2018 season, many have seen the Nationals as in their final season of true competitiveness, with a likely steep decline after this season. Frankly, it’s not quite that easy in any manner, but certainly, they aren’t that far from competing again.

The Nationals will lose Harper to free agency, and they have already traded away major free agents like Gio Gonzalez, Daniel Murphy, and Ryan Madson with Matt Wieters, Greg Holland, Kelvin Herrera, and Jeremy Hellickson also hitting free agency. That will likely decimate the Nationals bullpen, but certainly, the team has done without a dominant bullpen in the past and been successful. They also will have Sean Doolittle after most likely picking up his $6 million team option for 2019.

The Nationals could decide instead to go for a 3-aces approach to the season, pursuing Bumgarner to pitch between Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg. The biggest issue will be finding the prospects to trade to San Francisco in order to bring back Bumgarner.

The top prospect in the Nationals system is Victor Robles, who is expected to take over one of the outfield spots from Bryce Harper next season, so he is likely out. However, a deal headlined by Carter Kieboom could be attractive to the Giants, depending on the other pieces that the Nationals were willing to include.

That trio with the exciting young pairing of Juan Soto and Robles could give the Nationals exactly the foundation they’d need to squeeze at least one more season of competitiveness out of their roster.