Guardians stand out as solid trade fit for maligned former All-Star

The Washington Nationals have been stuck in the baseball wilderness since winning the World Series in 2019. While their 2022 trade of Juan Soto was largely praised at the time, they haven’t been able to capitalize on the talent they got in return. In fact, they took a step back in 2025 and won just 66 games after winning 71 games in the previous two seasons. 

As such, they fired manager Dave Martinez and hired 33-year-old Blake Butera to be their manager. And, as a part of that new era, could potentially listen on some of the players on their roster, one of whom is shortstop CJ Abrams. 

While there hasn’t been any reporting that has explicitly said that Abrams is available, their new president of baseball operations Paul Tobani has made it known that Washington is open for business.

Abrams was one of the headliners in the prospect package the Nationals got in exchange for Soto, and the results of his time in Washington have been a bit mixed. He was an All-Star in 2024 and has been worth at least 3.4 bWAR in all three of his full seasons with the Nationals, but was also demoted at the end of 2024 after pulling an all-nighter at a casino.  

He’s also still a work-in-progress in the field, as he’s committed 38 throwing errors over the past three seasons and finished 2025 in the second percentile in Outs Above Average. 

But, even with that, his power at the plate means that he’d have plenty of suitors if the Nationals do decide to trade him. 

In a new story for MLB Trade Rumors, Anthony Franco broke down some fits for Abrams, where he had the Guardians in the “Second-Tier Possibilities" category, writing:

“For this to work, the Guardians would need to be convinced Abrams can either stick at shortstop or adapt to center field. 2024 first overall pick Travis Bazzana is the hopeful long-term answer at second base. Cleveland needs offense generally and their shortstops (mostly Gabriel Arias and Brayan Rocchio) hit .204/.263/.321 this year. Their center fielders (.199/.256/.318) were somehow worse. The Guardians are generally built around defense, but they can’t expect to get back to the playoffs if they only outscore the Rockies and Pirates again. They could focus on the outfield with highly-regarded shortstop prospect Angel Genao having reached Double-A.”

The Guardians could end up benefited from the Washington Nationals' new era

As Franco mentioned, the Guardians trading for Abrams would be a bit of an outside the box transaction considering his poor defense. But it would start to make more sense if he moved to center field considering it would essentially be the same kind of move they made with Angel Martínez. 

Martínez came up through the minors as an infielder before almost all of 2025 as a center fielder, where he was worth -9 Defensive Runs Saved. Moving Abrams to the outfield would likely result in the same poor defensive performance, just with a lot more power at the plate. 

Abrams is about to hit arbitration for the first time in his career, where he’s projected to make $5.6 million, which would likely be the third-largest contract behind José Ramírez and Steven Kwan. A bit pricier than anyone else on the Guardians roster, but still not a huge amount of money, especially if the Guardians are able to get out of paying Emmanuel Clase. 

Abrams wouldn’t fit on the Guardians roster as a shortstop, but he’d be an obvious fit as a center fielder. He wouldn’t be perfect, but his upside is too much to ignore given the Guardians’ lack of production in the outfield.