A best and final Josh Bell trade offer to the Nationals

The MLB trade deadline has gotten cold but it should heat up soon. Baseball fans are eagerly anticipating the floodgates opening. For New York Mets fans, it’s waiting to see exactly which of the obvious trade targets they end up with.

Josh Bell has been speculated about as one of the potential chips the Mets could consider adding. He’s having a fine year for himself and could be a DH solution for the club on a more permanent basis than Daniel Vogelbach. Bell has slashed .311/.399/.489 versus righties this season. Against lefties, the bigger issue for New York, he’s hitting .287/.361/.500.

Splits like these are promising as the Mets look to add a bat and the Washington Nationals look to move him. Even if they are within the same division, trade chatter between the two has occurred. What will it take for the Mets to pick up Bell? Let’s make Washington a best and final offer.

A best and final trade offer from the Mets to the Nationals for Josh Bell

The Mets are disinterred in parting with any of their top prospects in exchange for a rental and that shouldn’t change for Bell who might be the best qualified player for the role New York is hoping to fill. He is younger than many of the other trade candidates and isn’t dealing with the same injuries. With this in mind and noting that the Nationals would want a little more because it is the Mets, we need to make sure we give them at least something halfway decent.

The Nationals do land the number 9 and 12 prospects in the deal which is sure to get some fans angry. Dominic Hamel and Jose Butto are promising young arms but they aren’t yet in the class as many others we’ve seen come up through the system. The Nationals can also have their pick of any non-top-25 prospect the Mets have in their system based on any list they can find that wasn’t produced by Mike Rizzo.

Pitching has been a major issue for Washington this year. While Hamel and Butto wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it now, at least they’d have two more arms they could throw into the farm system and work with.

The Mets load up further for this season with a guy who can hit righties and lefties. Bell might make Vogelbach a little less useful but without upgrading the catcher spot in the lineup, perhaps he then becomes the guy to pinch-hit for James McCann or Tomas Nido in a late and high-leverage situation against a righty.

That’s the best the Nationals are going to get from the Mets from Bell. Take it or leave it.