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Turns out Paul Toboni didn’t want to wait until he arrived in Orlando to make his first significant transaction running the Nationals. The new president of baseball operations got an offer he liked from the Mariners on Saturday and finalized a trade that sends Jose A. Ferrer to Seattle in exchange for top catching prospect Harry Ford and young pitching prospect Isaac Lyon.
And if you saw this one coming … well, congrats, because you’re the only one in the world who did.
When considering potential trade candidates off the Nats roster this winter, the focus seemed to be on guys who are a bit closer to free agency, such as MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams. Ferrer? He was under club control for four more seasons, a 25-year-old lefty with a dynamic arm who already flashed the potential to be an elite back end reliever during the second half of this season.
Why would a team prioritizing young players with plenty of club control trade away a potential building block like that? Because of what the Mariners offered back, specifically in Ford.
This is one of the top catching prospects in baseball, a first-round pick in 2021 who has ranked among the top 100 prospects in the sport the last three seasons, currently 42nd according to MLB Pipeline. He’s 22 years old, sports a .405 on-base percentage, .832 OPS and 92 stolen bases in 454 minor league games played over five seasons.
And, thanks to an MVP-caliber catcher with a $105 million contract blocking his path in Seattle, Ford was available.
If you’re Paul Toboni, and you have an opportunity to acquire a legit long-term catching option in exchange for four years of control of a promising late-inning reliever, you make that deal any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Does it create a massive hole in a bullpen that already was thin on proven arms? Absolutely. But it’s a lot easier to build a bullpen these days than it is to acquire a franchise catcher.
Wait, didn’t the Nationals just acquire a franchise catcher in another blockbuster trade four years ago, then sign him to a $50 million extension, the only player from this rebuild they’ve made that kind of commitment to? Yes, they did.
But given all Keibert Ruiz has been through, the injuries and the underwhelming performances when healthy, Toboni would have been taking an awful risk counting on him as his guy behind the plate in both the short- and long-term. This move doesn’t have to mean the end for Ruiz. He should still be given the opportunity to come to spring training, prove he’s over his concussion issues and then prove he can become the player who not long ago was a key part of a trade involving Max Scherzer and Trea Turner.
This move, though, gives the Nats the ability to not have to count on Ruiz being the guy anymore. Maybe the two catchers play well enough to merit a shared job. Maybe one of them seizes the No. 1 role and relegates the other to the backup role. Maybe someone even makes a position switch along the way.
Riley Adams and Drew Millas? At best, one of them sticks as a backup in the big leagues. Neither is likely to be given a shot at winning the No. 1 job at this point, not without something strange happening to the guys ahead of them on the depth chart.
We also don’t know what else Toboni has up his sleeve. He spent his first two months on the job focused on reshaping the front office, hiring a manager and filling out a coaching staff. He also cleared some 40-man roster spots, so he’d have the ability to start acquiring players as the offseason progressed.
Well, the real offseason has finally arrived. The Winter Meetings begin this evening in Orlando. Toboni is set to speak with reporters Monday and give his thoughts on the first trade of his tenure.
And there will probably be more to come.
