Washington Nationals Rumors: Nats and White Sox working on Adam Eaton deal?

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD. - After spending several weeks talking to the Chicago White Sox about left-hander Chris Sale, who ended up going to the Boston Red Sox in a 4-for-1 deal on Tuesday, Washington Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo was asked if he had interest in any other White Sox that came up during discussions.

“They’ve got some players of interest to a lot of teams,” Rizzo said. “There are a lot of different avenues we can go and we’re going to continue to look.”

While the Nationals reportedly turned back to talks with the Pittsburgh Pirates about Andrew McCutchen, MLB Network writerJon Morosi reported early this afternoon that the Nats had widened their search for potential outfield options:

Rizzo wasn’t giving anything away when he spoke to reporters this afternoon on Day 3 of the 2016 MLB Winter Meetings in the Gaylord Resort and Covention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland, but shortly after the daily briefing concluded, MLB.com’s Scott Merkin wrote on Twitter that he too was hearing that the Sox and Nats were talking about Eaton:

Eaton, who turned 28 this week, put up a .284/.362/.428 line over 157 games and 706 plate appearances in 2016, hitting 29 doubles, nine triples and 14 home runs in a 6.0 fWAR campaign in his third season in Chicago following a December 2013 trade from the Arizona Diamondbacks, who drafted outfielder in the 19th Round of the 2010 Draft.

Eaton has played predominantly in center over the course of his five seasons in the majors, so he makes sense based on what the Nats have been looking for this winter.

FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal too has now tweeted that he’s hearing the Sox and Nationals are working on a deal...

More info when it’s available...