Just like there is every year, there were a lot of rumors swirling around Major League Baseball in advance of the trade deadline on Sunday. But this was one of the more quiet deadlines in recent memory, and after making a couple moves earlier in the weekend, the Nats were one of many teams to have a quiet Sunday. All of the names that had been rumored as being discussed in potential deals (Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard and Ian Desmond among others) all stayed in Washington. But according to Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post, the Nats' inactivity wasn't a result of a lack of trying on GM Mike Rizzo's part.
“I wouldn’t describe it as disappointed,” Rizzo said. “We did a lot of work on it. We worked extremely hard to do the right thing, get the right player for the right return. It just didn’t match up. It’s frustrating at times, but you can’t make a deal just to make a deal. The players that we were going to have to give up in our minds, it didn’t fulfill what we were trying to do for the long-term.”
While I'm sure some people got very excited about the possibility of new players coming to D.C., there was a pretty significant sigh of relief when Drew Storen could still be seen warming up in the bullpen as the trade deadline passed. When he entered the game for the save (which he blew, ironically enough) he received a big ovation from the home crowd, who recognized what is appearance in this game meant. After the game, Storen tweeted this.
Thanks to everyone for the twitter love and ovation today Means a lot. Real pumped to still be here in DC.
Storen is still very young, and we don't know if he will be playing for the Nationals for very long after this because it is clear that he is a pretty good prospect and has some value, but he's still here now. So let's everybody take a break from these rumors for a little while, and just get back to playing some baseball.