Indians ship Asdrubal Cabrera to Washington

With 20 minutes to go before the trade deadline,the Cleveland Indians have moved shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera to the Washington Nationals in return for infielder Zach Walters.

The Indians had been trying to trade Cabrera,who is a free agent at the end of the season and the team was not going to attempt to re-sign Cabrera with Francisco Lindor being a year or less away from being the long term shortstop and apparently the Washington offer of Zach Walters was the one that they liked the most.
The Indians will also pay the remainder of Cabrera's money for the 2014 season.

The 28 year old Cabrera was obtained from Seattle in 2006 for Eduardo Perez,so the Indians got plenty of mileage out of a similar deal.
Cabrera peaked as a 25 year old as the shortstop posted career high numbers across the board,but has rarely approached those numbers since.
The drop from that season for a younger player and never really look like the same player thereafter is one of those puzzlers that you wonder what happened.

Cabrera will play second for the rest of the season in Washington with Anthony Rendon moving to the hot corner as the Nationals fill the hole left by the injury to Ryan Zimmerman,which could also give Washington a chance to see if Rendon could be the full time third baseman in 2015.

Zach Walters is a 25 year old shortstop that looks to be more of a utilityman at the big league level.
Washington traded for Walters in 2012 from Arizona and looked to be just another player until 2013 when he suddenly saw a power increase as he hit 29 homers after his previous high was 12.
If that was a big leaguer,red flags would immediately appear,but little was said about Walters leap in homers.
The Nationals must have wondered as well as Walters was returned to Syracuse where he hit another 15 homers in 60 games with the Chiefs instead of sticking with the big league team before being called up when the Nationals dealt with injury issues and hitting .205 in 43 at bats,but did hit three homers in the limited action.
Walters played shortstop with Syracuse,but looks to be moved to either third base or even possibly left field in the Indians system.

I've seen Walters play and I have never been impressed,although the power numbers have made me a little more open to him.
Walters still strikes out so much (134 times in 2013) and he just strikes me as a player that might wind up being a AAA hired gun in the long term.
I just don't think that he will make enough consistent contact at the big league level to be a starting level player to be a long term producer.

Back tomorrow with more from the inbox as it has some interesting stuff popping over the side....