WASHINGTON – Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo has kept his eye on Gio Gonzalez for the last decade or so. Now, the left-hander is a member of Rizzo’s starting rotation.
Capping trade talks that began about a month ago, the Athletics and Nationals completed a six-player swap Friday that sends Gonzalez from Oakland to Washington, where he joins a promising pitching staff that already included right-handers Stephen Strasburg and Jordan Zimmermann.
“I’ve known him since he was in high school in the Miami area. This is a guy I followed for years. I really like the way he competes,” Rizzo said on a conference call. “I call him, in a good way, a sore loser.”
Oakland gets four players in the deal: catcher Derek Norris, right-handers A.J. Cole and Brad Peacock, and left-hander Tommy Milone. The Nationals also received minor league right-hander Robert Gilliam, who went 12-7 with a 5.04 ERA and 156 strikeouts for Class-A Vancouver this year.
A’s general manager Billy Beane said he nearly took another offer but in the end preferred the prospects Washington sent.
“I told everyone I spoke to, we’d leverage one team against the other,” Beane said. “We were giving up a pitcher, and the ability to acquire
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