Pittsburgh Pirates: Five trade packages for Josh Bell

The Nationals will be in the market for a first baseman this offseason

The Nationals had a real problem with the first base position in 2020. Because their veteran franchise player Ryan Zimmerman opted out of the season the job was left to be split primarily between Eric Thames and Asdrubal Cabrera, who both had below average ERA+’s and are now both free agents. Zimmerman has not decided on if he will play in 2021 and even if he did he was a shell of his old self with a .736 OPS in 2019, the last season he played.

This is a trade that the Pittsburgh Pirates may want to pass up on, but it could also be a good gauge of how little value Bell actually has. For example, Bell’s highest WAR season was his All-Star 2019 when he had just a 2.7 WAR, and other than 2019 he hasn’t hit a 1.0 WAR through his career.

However, the Pirates do still acquire two quality prospects and international bonus money. Cole Henry is the 4th ranked Nationals prospect and was their 2nd round pick in 2020. He’s a right-handed starting pitcher out of LSU who threw strikes with ease and currently throws a 90-94 mph fastball. Henry could be a quality middle of the rotation guy one day and the Nationals will be ok parting with Henry as their top 7 prospects are all right-handed pitchers.

Tres Barrera is an MLB ready catcher who will be held back from being a starter due to his hitting, but he is regarded as a great framer with a good arm that pitchers like pitching to. He is currently serving an 80 game suspension for testing positive for a banned substance, so he will still have 20 games left on the suspension in 2021.