[I had to. I had to.]
Three days of slow MLB offseason news had to amount to something. How is Harold Reynolds supposed to sell something like Matt Andriese signing with Boston or Nate Lowe getting traded to Texas? It is the slowest of slow trade periods, and the burgeoning pandemic can't be helping that at all.
So it's nice that today, a genuinely huge offseason move happened, just in time for Christmas. The Nationals finally have a perennial first baseman, and the Pirates have more young pitching. It's a Christmas miracle.
Josh Bell is coming off a weak year, so perhaps his stock was low enough that the Nats could pull this off, but if Bell gets back to his 2019 numbers in Washington, oh boy. The Nationals have the kind of team right now that could compete again if it builds a young enough core, and getting someone like Bell, who's in his late 20s but still a younger asset, to come by and be a strong performer for a few years is the right idea. Bell is still capable of major power hitting and RBI work, and can be a solid 1st baseman in the wake of Eric Thames leaving and Ryan Zimmerman either not being re-signed or being signed as a bench player. The center of this team will still be Soto, Turner and Luis Garcia, but Bell will be a powerful cleanup hitter in Washington and will get this team on the right track.
As for the prospects that landed in Pittsburgh...they're better than the inefficiency that's currently at work in that pitching staff anyway, so I hope they can help.
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