{"id":60050,"date":"2023-07-31T21:11:11","date_gmt":"2023-08-01T01:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=60050"},"modified":"2023-07-31T21:11:11","modified_gmt":"2023-08-01T01:11:11","slug":"cubs-trade-nationals-candelario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/07\/31\/cubs-trade-nationals-candelario\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs Acquire Jeimer Candelario From Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/07\/13\/cubs-corner-outfielders\/\" target=\"_self\">Chicago Cubs<\/a> are pushing for the playoffs. The team has made a significant addition to their roster. In that move, the Cubs have acquired third baseman Jemier Candelario and cash consideration in a trade with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/06\/03\/strasburg-news-nationals\/\" target=\"_self\">Washington Nationals<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Cubs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Cubs<\/a> today acquired INF Jeimer Candelario and a cash consideration from the Washington Nationals for minor league LHP DJ Herz and minor league INF Kevin Made. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/D6UovULOmo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/D6UovULOmo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Cubs\/status\/1686149297341902848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 31, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Currently, Chicago sits 3 1\/2 games behind a third NL Wild Card sport and four behind the division lead. At 53-52, they&#8217;ve had an up-and-down season characterized by missed opportunities. Despite this, they hold the best run differential in the division by a wide margin of +57. In contrast, the Washington Nationals are in last place in the NL East and were clear sellers from the outset. Candelario was their best trade target, and they&#8217;ve now flipped the impending free agent for prospects.<\/p>\n<h2>Cubs Trade For Jeimer Candelario<\/h2>\n<h3>A Lineup Upgrade For the Cubs<\/h3>\n<p>This Cubs trade was made for competing for the playoffs this season. Washington signed Candelario to a one-year deal on an apparent prove-it agreement this offseason. Candelario proved it, and now he&#8217;s on the move as designed. Firstly, he&#8217;s been one of the best third basemen in baseball this season, leading the position with 3.1 bWAR. He&#8217;s hitting .258 with 16 home runs in 2023 and played serviceable defence sporting a .974 fielding percentage. Despite the cost, this is a clear upgrade over Patrick Wisdom, who is hitting under .200 this season and has more errors in less than half the innings at third base. Chicago&#8217;s two best players are both on expiring deals. Rather than bring in a haul of assets, the Cubs will keep their roster intact and push for the postseason.<\/p>\n<h3>The Nationals Continue Their Rebuild<\/h3>\n<p>The Nationals acquired two minor leaguers in exchange for Candelario and cash considerations. Left-handed pitcher DJ Herz is Chicago&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/prospects\/cubs\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">16th-ranked prospect<\/a>. He&#8217;s 1-1 this season with a 3.97 ERA in 14 starts and has struck out 80 batters in 59 innings. He throws a low-90s fastball, a newly-developed slider, and a changeup is his best offering. Though he&#8217;s been developed as a starter, he&#8217;s projected to move to the bullpen with a deceptive, cross-body delivery if he can throw more strikes. Shortstop Kevin Made is the Cubs&#8217; 14th-ranked prospect, with gifted defensive skills and modest power. He&#8217;s struggled this season, hitting .240 in High-A. However, he&#8217;s still only 20 years old, and evaluators believe he has one of the higher upsides in Chicago&#8217;s system. The Nationals signed Candelario in hopes of trading him midseason and now have flipped him for two promising young players to develop their rebuilding club.<\/p>\n<h3>Impact on the NL Playoff Picture<\/h3>\n<p>The Cubs have solidified their intention to compete in the crowded NL field with the Candelario deal. They have a solid, if unspectacular, roster and intend to stand firm into October. However, this deal doesn&#8217;t place them in the top tier of the NL or even their division. The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/07\/22\/brewers-christian-yelich-return\/\" target=\"_self\">Milwaukee Brewers<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/07\/29\/david-bell-extension\/\" target=\"_self\">Cincinnati Reds<\/a> look like more threatening teams in October, though players like Stroman and Bellinger even the field a bit. Overall, this deal improves the Cubs, but it&#8217;s unclear if it will take them over the edge.<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/candeje01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-07-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jeimer Candelario<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=herz--000dav&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-07-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DJ Herz<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=made--000kev&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-07-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Made<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wisdopa01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-07-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Patrick Wisdom<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chicago Cubs are pushing for the playoffs. The team has made a significant addition to their roster. In that move, the Cubs have acquired third baseman Jemier Candelario and cash consideration in a trade with the Washington Nationals. The #Cubs today acquired INF Jeimer Candelario and a cash consideration from the Washington Nationals for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4771,"featured_media":60061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,2,1071,19],"tags":[5884,1297,6509,5189],"class_list":["post-60050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cubs","category-featured","category-mlb","category-nationals","tag-dj-herz","tag-jeimer-candelario","tag-kevin-made","tag-patrick-wisdom"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4771"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}