The Cincinnati Reds' veteran player, Brandon Phillips, has said to have finally ended the trade talks with the Washington Nationals. There were reports before that the Nationals is strongly interested in acquiring a second baseman, and they are targeting Reds' second baseman Brandon Phillips. However, after some time, the rumored trade transaction went dull and finally ending with a no trade.
It was reported that in recent weeks, the Nationals are willing to swap several minor league players for the service of Phillips, however, with Philips waiver on his no-trade clause, no trade was actualized. The said trade deal which was speculated to be a done deal, especially after Phillips tweeted that "he was going from the 513 (Cincinnati area code) to the 202 (Washington)," reported espn, never came to be.
Now that negotiations have reached a standstill. Despite the said incident, the Nationals still has some other options in their hand. According to espn, Howie Kendrick could be a possible substitute replacing Phillips from the equation. The report also added that, the team could make use some help in the pitching department following the departure of Jordan Zimmermann through free agency. They could also make use of Wei Yin Chen a left hander, but with no notice on the contract terms.
Now that the major hindrance to the trade deal has been identified, and Phillips himself was a testimony to that, it would surely be logical for the Nationals to move ahead and look for a replacement. Though a player with such calibre of Phillips is hard to come by, they might want to continue their reported interest with Ben Zobrist and Jason Heyward, which sadly has been rumored not interested on playing with the Nationals.
In line with the turn of events, guess we would just have to wait see further of the Washington Nationals' next move.