Tough selling Miller to Nats
ONE reason the Cubs could feel good about taking the bold step to give up a highly touted shortstop prospect for Aroldis Chapman, in search of a championship, was simple: Between Addison Russell and Javier Baez, they’re already loaded at the position with young talent.
Which is why GM Brian Cashman no doubt continues to hope that the Nationals will take a similar view of Andrew Miller as a vital piece in their championship puzzle, and trade the Yankees one of their promising young starting pitchers, Lucas Giolito or Reynaldo Lopez.
The Nationals, after all, have a starting rotation that is plenty good enough to win it all this season — and probably for years to come. They locked up Stephen Strasburg with that in mind, pairing him with Max Scherzer for a 1-2 punch to match up with anyone in baseball.
And in Tanner Roark and Joe Ross they have two more very good starters that they control for another three and five years, respectively.
The problem for them is they have bullpen issues, with the late innings built around Shawn Kelley and Jonathan Papelbon, which could be a roadblock to success in October.
That’s no small matter for a franchise that has underachieved for five years, sees the clock ticking already on Bryce Harper’s free agency, and should be looking to cash in on what may be a career year from Daniel Murphy.
Yet the Nationals so far are holding tight to their top prospects, telling the Yankees they won’t give away the future for Miller, even if the lefty is under contract for two more years.
To which some in the game say: If not now, when?
“At some point it just makes sense to go for it,” one major league scout said on Wednesday. “The Cubs are doing it, and Theo (Epstein) is a guy who values prospects as much as anybody.
“Washington spent all that money on Scherzer and Strasburg, and they’ve put themselves in position, but they have a need at the back end of the bullpen. I know it’s never easy to give up players you develop in your system — we all fall in love with our own prospects.
“But that’s part of the reason you work at developing prospect depth, to be able to use it when you have a chance to win.”
So will the Nationals cave before Monday’s trade deadline?
It makes for great intrigue because, if anything, the price for Miller continues to climb. By getting hot over the last 10 days, playing their way into legitimate contention for a wild-card berth, the Yankees are making it tougher for GM Brian Cashman to justify trading another lockdown reliever.
More to the point, they’re making it tougher for Cashman to convince Hal Steinbrenner that another Chapman-like trade would be the right move.
I still think the GM would see it that way, if he got young players that would form a nucleus for a championship-caliber team in the coming years.
Miller’s greatest value is in putting a team over the top, and as well as the Yankees have played in recent days, I just don’t see how anyone could put them in that category. Their starting pitching has been brilliant of late, but the track records say the inconsistency will resurface, and the offense remains less than imposing — 12th in the AL in runs scored as the games started Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, if the Yankees were to trade Miller, I get the sense that Cashman believes the bullpen could still be strong, even if it means using Chad Green and/or Luis Severino to set up, along with Adam Warren, for Dellin Betances as the closer.
For that matter, it’s possible that Severino’s failure to make good on his promise early this season could mean he’s better-suited to be a reliever, as was the case with Betances.
Or Cashman could also have his sights set on signing Chapman as a free agent next winter, ensuring that any bullpen work this season by Severino would be temporary.
In any case, if a deal were to be made for Miller, chances are that convincing Steinbrenner would take bringing back at least one major league-ready player, as in the Chapman trade.
That’s what makes the Nationals the best match. The 23-year-old Giolito is ready, and while he’s a consensus top 10 prospect in all of baseball, two scouts have told me they’re more impressed with Lopez, a 22-year-old righthander in Triple-A. nd then there is Ross, the 23-yearold righthander who has made 32 starts over the last two seasons for the Nats, pitching to a 3.56 ERA with more upside. I have to believe Cashman would be happy with any of those three, plus a good position-player prospect and maybe one lesser prospect, and take such a trade to Steinbrenner for approval.
That would be a tough sell, the way the Yankees have played lately. Just not as tough as the Nationals, at least so far.
A