Washington Nationals trade Ehire Adrianza to the Atlanta Braves

The Washington Nationals have officially started their business this trade deadline.

In the first of what many expect to be several deals in the coming days, the Nationals traded Ehire Adrianza to the Atlanta Braves, with whom he won a World Series last year, for outfield prospect, Trey Harris.

Adrianza didn't have a huge amount of time to make an impact with the Nationals after missing the first two months of the season with a left quad strain that he suffered at the end of Spring Training.

Making 31 appearances for Washington, Adrianza slashed just .179/.255/.202 with a wRC+ of just 33, often just filling in when manager Dave Martinez wanted to give someone a day off.

Of late though, the Nats' skipper had been giving him a bit more playing time at third base over Maikel Franco, perhaps in hindsight to put him in the shop window...

"I’m trying to keep him going," Martinez explained. "When you get hurt and miss that much time during the season, it takes you a little bit to get going. I think over the last few days, he’s been hitting the ball a lot better.

"So I didn’t want him to lose that by sitting him for a week or something. So I’ve been playing him quite a bit."

Harris, who heads to D.C. in the trade, was ranked as the Braves' 29th-best prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, however, he was unranked by either FanGraphs or Baseball America.

In 59 games at Double-A this season, Harris is slashing an underwhelming .238/.338/.323 with two home runs and 16 RBIs, as his line looks very similar to 2021 when he struggled at the same level with a .247/.317/.354 slash line in 96 games.

It's been a far cry from the player that Harris appeared to be developing into in 2019 when he won the Braves' Hank Aaron Award, which they present to the top offensive player in their system.

That season, he slashed a dominant .323/.389/.498 with 14 home runs and 73 RBIs, rising from Low-A to Double-A and gaining a reputation for being able to barrel up fastballs well.

It's a slow start for the Nationals as the trade deadline approaches, but we expect more sizeable moves from the team in the near future...