The season is hanging by a thread for the Washington Nationals and recently Mike Rizzo was coy on trading Bryce Harper. What could they get for him in?
The Washington Nationals once again sit at .500 in 2018. Their season appears to be in a state of limbo, so it begs the question: Is dealing Bryce Harper starting to become a realistic proposition?
Well, when Mike Rizzo was asked about this exact topic, he gave a surprisingly non-committal answer. He spoke to 106.7 The Fan on his weekly segment and said:
"“A lot of things go into that question. That’s a question that is tough to answer. It would have to be a spectacular set of circumstances for us to do that.”"
Although there’s not a huge amount to read into that, it means he has at least considered the possibility. But as he eludes to, it would take a certain turn of events in order for them to think about dealing their star outfielder.
One of those is already playing out. The Nats are just 51-51 approaching the trade deadline, a position they never expected to be in at the start of the season. If they can’t string together more wins before the deadline, and start to work their way back into the NL East, that ticks that off.
The other circumstance would be whether a team will actually cough up a prospect package to make it worth it. This seems the most unlikely of the two to happen, given Harper’s disappointing 2018 campaign.
The superstar is likely to receive a qualifying offer from the Nats in the off-season, so were he to leave then, he would net the Nats a pick after the second or fourth round depending on their luxury tax status.
So the package would need to contain at least one prospect higher than that pedigree. And even then, the players they receive would likely need to be able to help the big league club quickly, as they gear up to compete again in 2019.
So what sort of package could the Nationals get for Bryce Harper? Well, we asked some of our FanSided site brothers for a helping hand, to get a more realistic gauge of the price.