The Washington Nationals are in a weird spot. They’re over .500 in July, scoring more runs than anyone in baseball, and James Wood looks like the real deal. But there’s one move they absolutely cannot make at this year’s trade deadline, and it has nothing to do with their rotation or bullpen.
It’s CJ Abrams. They can’t trade him.
The numbers are too good to ignore
Abrams is 25 years old. He doesn’t turn 26 until October. And right now, he leads the entire league with 60 RBIs. He’s hitting .273 with a .355 on-base percentage, and he’s already got 18 homers in 84 games — two shy of his career high. That puts him on pace for 100-plus runs.
But what makes this different from a hot streak is the context. The Nationals are winning. They hit 45 wins before the All-Star break last year? No. They didn’t even win 40 games until late July in 2025. This year they’re already 45-43, and Abrams is driving the bus alongside Wood.
Paul Toboni, the team’s first-year president of baseball operations, told CBS Sports the clubhouse vibe is completely different. “Every single member on the team, staff and player, are pulling on the same end of the rope,” he said. That kind of buy-in doesn’t show up in box scores, but it matters when you’re trying to build something sustainable.
The defensive question, and why it shouldn’t matter
Look, Abrams is not a good shortstop. He’s genuinely bad there, and everyone knows it. But here’s the thing: his bat is so good that it covers for the glove. Worst case, you move him to second base or make him a designated hitter. The Nationals have other options at shortstop — or they can find one. What they can’t do is replace a middle-of-the-order bat hitting cleanup who’s still under team control for years.
Toboni didn’t mince words when asked about Abrams and Wood as core pieces. “If you’re asking whether they’re studs on what we hope to be a playoff-caliber team, then yeah,” he said. “I think the whole league saw them as good players last year. I think that the league is looking at them as, ‘Hey, these are these players at the top of their craft at each of their respective positions.’”
Trading Abrams now would be a classic “two players for one” disaster. Even if the Nationals get two decent prospects back, the odds of either turning into a player as good as Abrams are low. You can’t rebuild forever. At some point you need to keep the stars you already have.
Patience is the play
The smarter move is to sit tight at the deadline, add through free agency this winter, and make a real push in 2027. The Nationals have their one-two punch. They’ve got a young team that’s learning how to win. Abrams is on track to be a fixture for the next half-decade. The only mistake left to make is convincing yourself that more prospects is worth losing him.
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