MLB Trade Rumors dropped the report Saturday: multiple clubs have reached out to the Nationals about infielder Luis Garcia Jr. as the August 3 deadline creeps closer. That's the kind of one-line report that usually means nothing, except this time the guy at the center of it is having a career year for a team nobody expected to be relevant in late July.
"Multiple Teams" Asking Nationals About Luis Garcia Jr. t.co/74XgYL0FWh
Garcia is hitting .284/.317/.554 with a career-high 20 home runs and a 136 OPS+, numbers that make him one of the better offensive players on a Nationals team that's clawed back to .500. He's 26, still has a year of club control left after signing a $6.88 million deal to avoid arbitration, and has second-base experience that widens the pool of teams who could use him. That combination -- controllable, cheap, versatile, and mashing -- is exactly why front offices are picking up the phone.
The complicating wrinkle is that Washington isn't clearly selling. The Nationals have battled back to a 49-49 record and sit just 3 games behind the Cardinals for the last NL wild card spot, so this isn't a rebuilding club shopping its best hitter for the highest bidder. It's a team trying to figure out if it's actually in the race while other clubs test the price on its breakout piece.
Reports out of The Athletic indicate the talks haven't gone beyond a preliminary stage, which tracks -- teams always kick the tires early before the real offers show up in the final week. The Red Sox have already been floated as a fit given Garcia's ability to play second, and expect more names to surface the closer Washington gets to deciding whether it's buying or selling.
For a Nationals fan base that's watched years of teardown after the 2019 title, this is the first real test of the new era: do you cash in a controllable, ascending 26-year-old for a haul while his value is at its peak, or do you bet on him as a building block for a team that might actually be turning the corner? Either way, Garcia's name isn't going away before August 3.