With Cliff Lee off the table, there are a lot of teams that will shift their focus to the next best "available" pitcher, Kansas City's Zack Greinke, who is reportedly available to the highest bidder.
The Nationals, who are apparently not done making waves in the offseason, are "aggressively pursuing" a trade for Greinke, according to Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post. The issue, however, is wether or not the team has enough chips that they are willing to part with to acquire him.
"Here's the problem they have: They're not going to trade Desmond," one major league source said. "He's a guy they think is going to be their shortstop for the next 10 years. That's a really tough guy for them [to trade]. It almost negates getting that pitcher. Same thing with Zimmermann. Everybody else [aside from Ryan Zimmerman and Jayson Werth] is fair game. They're not going to move Desmond. They'd move [Danny] Espinosa in a heartbeat."
This is the problem with trying to get that front of the rotation starter through trade as opposed to just signing him outright through free agency. The Nationals have a lot of young prospects in the organization, but they might not want to part with them. Especially Desmond, apparently. If the Nationals are able to acquire Greinke, it will be at the expense of some of their young talent.