Washington Nationals: Seven free agent second baseman to consider
By Blake Finney
Asdrubal Cabrera
After a season in which he played for two different NL East teams, Asdrubal Cabrera could be set for a reunion with the Washington Nationals in 2019. He’s one of the options that’s not been talked about as much but could be one of the more productive.
Back in 2014, the Nationals acquired Cabrera for the last two months of the season in exchange for Zach Walters. So the front office will clearly value his skillset to some degree, even though he’s a slightly different player to the one he was back then.
When the Nats first acquired him he was a fairly slick-fielding full-time shortstop who made the move to second base. However, since then he’s lost some of his athleticism but gained a lot more power and could be a nice fit at second base.
Over the last four seasons, Cabrera has slashed a respectable .272/.329/.450 with 75 homers, reaching at least 14 homers in each season. The power is most notable, as the Nationals will certainly need to replace the void in that area left by Harper with several players stepping up, including potentially Cabrera.
While Cabrera is no longer as much of a defensive asset as he once was, he can at least be serviceable at multiple positions. He saw significant time at second base, shortstop and third base in 2018 with the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies, so could step in at any if need be.
Jon Heyman and his expert both predicted a $7 million annual average for Cabrera this offseason, which could potentially end up being a bargain. However, they differed on the number of years, going for one and two years respectively. That may be a little steep for a stopgap, but the bat is certainly appealing here.