Yankees trade rumors: Cubs, Nationals showing interest in Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller

The Nationals are no fools; they know sweeping the Phillies and watching their relievers allow only 3 ER and 3 BB with 7 SO in 6 IP over the weekend isn’t a reason to slow their search for solid arms. As a contending team moving toward July, their desires will skew toward "bullpen help;” that ambiguous term that generally means a team is doing fine and may or may not find a relief pitcher to throw into the mix because they feel like it.

So, who has the relievers Nationals fans will suddenly be unable to live without for the next month? This year, it's the Yankees, says Ken Rosenthal:

The Nationals’ priority is adding an impact reliever such as Aroldis Chapman or Andrew Miller. The Yankees, though, might not make either of those pitchers available and the Nats might not be willing to pay the acquisition costs for a late inning force anyway.

Rosenthal notes is that Washington has a pretty stellar bullpen already - tinkering with it just to bring in an “impact arm” that carries no guarantee of actual impact may not be the way to go. Don’t forget, there’s relief support in play in the form of a pair of fireballers in the Nats’ farm system: starter Reynaldo Lopez, who can hit 97-98 m.p.h., and Koda Glover, who has only slightly less cheese on his heater, are both fermenting at the Nationals’ double-A affiliate in Harrisburg.

In their attempt to amass all of the sport’s effective players into an amorphous, blue-clad baseball monster, the Cubs are also peeking at Chapman and Miller. A Cubs scout was deployed to Yankee Stadium over the weekend to monitor the activities of both arms, as well as 28-year-old Dellin Betances. At the moment, the Yankees’ still have their noses in the air, not yet ready to disassemble their roster and sell it for scrap like peasants, but we’ll see how they feel in a couple of weeks.

Like the Nationals, it isn’t as if the Cubs’ have a dire need to acquire more relievers with the likes of Pedro Strop, Trevor Cahill, and Hector Rodon out there, contributing to the team’s scalding collective 2.65 ERA. Things tend to get pretty intense in the Cubs bullpen.