Takes A Lot Of Balls For Jonathan Papelbon To Demand To Be The Closer Before Accepting a Trade From The Last Place Phillies To The First Place Nationals

Reallyyyyy ballsy of Heel Papelbon to be making demands when the Phillies are trying to trade him in-division to a potential World Series team. Is that already a red flag? I don’t get how Papelbon wouldn’t embrace the role as a set-up man if that’s what the Nats thought he would be best at. Not to say he wouldn’t be able to step in and close, of course he would, but why even start drama like that with Drew Storen, who is having a phenomenal year himself? It’s mind blowing to me Papelbon is going out of his way to make it harder for the Phils to trade him. There are a lot of good teams out there who already have a closer who want his services, but he’s going to demand he close games? So basically he’s driving down his trade value by making that demand, and making it harder for his team to trade him to a winner, as most winning teams already have good closers. Pretty interesting thinking going on in his head. Now if the Nats can convince him to be the set-up guy, or can convince Storen to take the role, this is what we are looking at:

I mean that’s a lethal 8th and 9th inning combo. Just depends on if Papelbon can put his ego aside and make this happen. Or again, maybe Storen will be ok with taking the set-up role? We will see, but I hope this happens, would be a fantastic addition to the Nats, who have to be at least a little concerned now that the Mets added two bats and Tyler Clippard.