3 Gleyber Torres trades Yankees could pursue

2. Gleyber Torres to the Nationals for Max Scherzer/Carter Kieboom

The Yankees would be turning the dial up to 11 with this Gleyber Torres trade.

The Nationals are in eternal need of a second baseman, and the Yankees are looking to win both now and in the future.

Therefore, why wouldn’t the Nats surrender the final year of their expensive ace and their top prospect who failed to establish himself in 2020 in exchange for four years of a superstar? Makes sense! It’s also the type of trade that absolutely, positively never happens.

Scherzer, set to hit free agency before his age-38 season next year, is fresh off a 2019 World Series (vindication!) and 92 strikeouts in 67.1 innings in a slightly-subpar 60-game sample. If the Nationals think they’ll contend in 2021, then they’ll certainly hold onto him for the final season of his valuable mega-deal. But the exodus has already begun. Sean Doolittle is gone. Adam Eaton is gone. Howie Kendrick wants to play another season, but is no longer under contract. Juan Soto, Stephen Strasburg, and Patrick Corbin remain, but ’21 will quite likely be a bridge to the future in DC. So why not take the plunge and kick the re-tool into high gear?

One year of Scherzer is obviously not worth four years of Torres, though, so even though Mad Max is likely the bigger name, it’ll cost the Nationals significantly more. In this hypothetical, the Yankees would have to shoot for the stars with Kieboom, who struggled to carve out a role for the Nats last year as the team’s consensus top prospect. If Washington isn’t willing to part with him in the package, there’s nothing else in their farm system that can even pique the Yankees’ interest enough to bring them to the table.