On the surface, you would imagine an All-Star closer would be one of the players a team should most want to keep around, right? In the words of college football legend Lee Corso, "not so fast, my friend." According to MLB Network analyst Jon Paul Morosi, Kyle Finnegan may find himself on the trade market as this offseason progresses.
Even from the video preview below, it's clear that Finnegan isn't on the same level as some of the other best closers in the league. But still, he's still a quality relief arm that Davey Martinez clearly places a lot of trust in. Should the Nationals really be willing to let him go?
Finnegan has certainly had some very impressive outings, at times mowing through the heart of some very difficult lineups in high-leverage situations. But on the other hand, it seems that when it rains, it pours for Finnegan. At times, he would struggle to record an out and surrender a string of hard contact.
"I'll give you a few names I've already heard being out there... Devin Williams, Ryan Helsley and Kyle Finnegan."
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) November 20, 2024
- @jonmorosi on the trade market for closers pic.twitter.com/4vGsCbjc4N
Part of what makes him so difficult to assess is that during the first half of the season, he often did look dominant. Finnegan surrendered only one run in just shy of 10 innings during the month of May, and he struck out 11.9 batters per nine innings in June (his best of any month in 2024).
The wheels came off from July 1 through the rest of the season. Over that stretch, he posted a 5.34 ERA, and a 1.68 WHIP. He struck out 6.8 batters and walked 3.6 per nine innings, for a below-2.0 ratio of strikeouts per walk (which is problematic for any pitcher, not to mention a closer).
Odds are he'll rebound and throw much better in the future that he did during the second half of 2024. But how much better? Per MLB Trade Rumors, Finnegan is projected to earn $8.6 million through arbitration for the 2025 season. If he's not one of the better relievers in the league, that quickly becomes too much money to justify.
Complicating the matter even further, Finnegan is already 33 years old and entering the final season of his contract. While they certainly could attempt to sign him to an extension, it's difficult to view him as a long-term building block.
There was a good bit of discussion about whether the Nationals should have traded Finnegan in July. They opted to keep him, with the thought being that they essentially needed bullpen arms to make sure they could get 27 outs every night. That's an understandable approach, but the reality is his impact towards that mission was probably overstated, particularly in hindsight, given how his season ended.
The essential question in this discussion is this. How much could the Nationals really get in return by trading Finnegan? The answer remains unclear, and really depends on how good the market thinks he is, along with how much his age and projected salary matter to other teams.
To that point, there's no guarantee that the Nationals will want to retain him at all. Friday is the deadline for teams to determine whether they want to retain arbitration-eligible players. Finnegan falls into that bucket. Without going into the weeds of how these negotiations work, both sides will have considerable leverage. From Finnegan's perspective, he made it to the All-Star game this season and recorded 38 saves, the third-most of any pitcher this season. The team, however, will have the points I have made (such as his age and struggles late in the season) on their side.
If the Nationals don't want to saddle themselves with a relatively large contract for 2025, in an offseason in which there seems to be willingness to spend in free agency, a logical way to "cut corners" would be to move on from Finnegan. Ideally, that would involve trading him for something of decent value and turning to someone else to anchor the bullpen moving forward.