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Nationals To Hire Corey Ray As First Base Coach

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The Nationals are going to hire Corey Ray as first base coach, reports Spencer Nusbaum of The Washington Post. He had previously been working for the Cubs in the minor leagues. He will replace Gerardo Parra as the first base coach in Washington.

Ray, 31, was once a high profile prospect. The Brewers selected him fifth overall in the 2016 draft and signed him with a $4.125MM bonus. He clearly had incredible tools in terms of power and speed but he had trouble recognizing breaking pitches. This led to a lot of swing-and-miss, especially as he climbed the minor league ladder and faced better pitching. When he first reached Triple-A in 2019, he struck out in 38.7% of his plate appearances. He would lower than number in future seasons but still ended up walking back to the dugout about a third of the time.

His prospect stock dimmed but the Brewers still didn’t want to lose him in the 2019 Rule 5 draft, so they added him to the 40-man roster. He stuck on the 40-man for a while but only got into one major league game, on April 24th of 2021, going 0-2 with one walk, one strikeout and one run scored. He was sent through waivers unclaimed in June of 2022. He became a minor league free agent at season’s end and didn’t sign anywhere else.

In the spring of 2023, the Cubs hired Ray to serve as a bench coach for their Single-A Myrtle Beach affiliate. Going into 2024, he was named manager of the club’s Arizona Complex League team. Nusbaum notes that Ray has also been serving as the organization’s baserunning coordinator.

The Nats are undergoing a major overhaul of their organization. Their ongoing rebuild has failed to show much progress and so just about everything is on the chopping block. President of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez were fired midseason. In September, Paul Toboni was hired as the club’s new president of baseball operations.

In October, it was reported that interim manager Miguel Cairo wouldn’t be continuing in that role while six coaches would only be brought back if the new manager wanted them on the staff. Those six were pitching coach Jim Hickey, hitting coach Darnell Coles, third base coach Ricky Gutierrez, bullpen coach Ricky Bones, catching/strategy coach Henry Blanco and Parra. Blake Butera was hired as the new manager a couple of days after that reporting. Since then, the Nats have hired Michael Johns as bench coach, Simon Mathews as pitching coach and now Ray as first base coach.

Fresh blood seems to be the name of the game. Johns is 50 years old but Toboni is 35, Butera 33 and Mathews 30. As mentioned, Ray is just 31 and not too far removed from his playing days. Younger doesn’t necessarily mean better and the Nats are presumably looking at attributes other than just age but it is perhaps an interesting symbol of how the organization felt it was falling behind the times and needed to quickly modernize.

Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images

Nationals Hire Desmond McGowan To Lead Amateur Scouting

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The Nationals are hiring Desmond McGowan to lead their amateur scouting department, according to a report from Joe Doyle of Over-Slot Baseball. McGowan’s title will be director of amateur acquisitions.

McGowan got his start in baseball with the Yankees as an analytics associate in 2019 before jumping to the Mets as an analyst in 2021. He rose through the ranks across five years in the Mets front office and was promoted to manager of data science earlier this year. McGowan’s work with the club was primarily focused on the draft, and he’ll remain in a similar role with the Nationals as he takes over his new club’s amateur scouting apparatus.

The hire continues an offseason that has been focused on overhauling the Nationals’ front office and coaching staffs after Paul Toboni and Blake Butera were brought in to replace Mike Rizzo as head of baseball operations and Dave Martinez as manager, respectively. Butera has made a number of additions to the coaching staff in the weeks since his hire, while Toboni has retained interim GM Mike DeBartolo in an assistant GM role while adding former Pirates director of amateur scouting Justin Horwitz to the organization as an assistant GM as well.

The Nationals’ focus on bringing in front office talent with a history in scouting continues with the hiring of McGowan. Toboni himself, of course, began his career with the Red Sox as an area scout before ascending the ranks to become an assistant GM during his time with Boston. That his front office hires to this point have reflected that experience is hardly a surprise, particularly given the fact that the Nationals remain entrenched in a lengthy rebuild that began back in 2021. While James Wood has emerged as a core piece of the future and some other players have shown promise, even controllable pieces like MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams remain heavily speculated upon as trade candidates with no end to the club’s rebuilding phase in sight.

That makes strong scouting, drafting, and development decisions over the next few years a must as the club looks to dig itself out of the hole it’s currently in. Bringing in minds like Toboni, Horwitz, and now McGowan should assist in that effort to beef up the scouting credentials of the Nationals’ front office, and the hope is surely to build out a robust farm system around top prospects Eli Willits, Travis Sykora, and Jarlin Susana, the latter two of whom could theoretically make their MLB debuts at some point during the 2026 campaign. That’s particularly important given that previous high-end draft picks by the Nationals under Rizzo haven’t always worked out in recent years. Dylan Crews was selected second overall in 2023 and certainly has a great deal of potential, but he’s yet to prove himself as even a league average hitter in the majors. Elijah Green, who the club selected fifth overall in 2022, is an even bigger question mark as he’s struggled to hit even in the lower minors and has not yet reached the Double-A level.

Nationals Hire Grant Anders To Coaching Staff

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The Nationals have hired Grant Anders for a role as a Major League development coach and bullpen catcher, according to the Washington Post’s Spencer Nusbaum.  Anders stays in the Beltway after two years on the Orioles’ coaching staff in a similar role as a development coach.

Reports emerged a few weeks ago that Anders wouldn’t be returning to Baltimore, as the hiring of new manager Craig Albernaz naturally brought several changes to the coaching ranks.  Anders had been with the O’s since November 2019, working as a development coach in the minors before his promotion to the big league staff prior to the 2024 season.

As outlined by reporter Jon Meoli during Spring Training 2022 (hat tip to Nusbaum for the link), the development coach role is something of an analytically-driven version of a traditional coaching job.  “They must be competent enough on the field to coach and help players improve, yet deft enough with data and technology to be the affiliate’s in-house analytics expert,” Meoli wrote.  This applied to Anders’ background when he broke into baseball at Radford University, and he moved onto internship and trainee roles with the Royals and Reds before being hired by the Orioles.

New Nationals president of baseball operations Paul Toboni has made a point of younger hires and modern perspectives into his overhaul of Washington’s front office and on-field staff.  Toboni (who is himself only 35 years old) has hired 33-year-old Blake Butera as the Nats’ new manager and 30-year-old Simon Matthews as pitching coach, with bench coach Michael Johns as the relative graybeard of the group at age 50.  This group will now try to turn around a Nationals club that has struggled through six straight losing seasons, and Anders has some experience due to his work in helping the Orioles get through their rebuild period.

Nationals Re-Sign Erick Mejia

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Infielder-turned-pitcher Erick Mejia is back with the Nationals on a minor league deal, reports Matt Eddy of Baseball America. The former shortstop converted to pitching last season and reached Triple-A by the end of the year.

After logging a single inning on the mound at Triple-A in 2024, Mejia truly began his pitching journey this past season. He opened the year in Single-A, posting an impressive 33.3% strikeout rate over 12 innings. Mejia earned a couple of saves and a win with Fredericksburg. He moved up to Double-A and delivered a 2.33 ERA across 24 appearances. Mejia’s strikeouts tailed off, while his walk rate spiked to 18.6%, but he limited hitters to a .174 batting average. He found himself back in Rochester by August, though he was knocked around for 12 earned runs in 10 innings. Mejia’s walk rate remained a bloated 18%.

Seattle signed Mejia as an international free agent in 2012. He was obviously still a shortstop back then. Mejia climbed through the Mariners’ system with a strong hitting profile and a bit of speed. He was dealt to the Dodgers in January 2016 for Joe Wieland. Mejia upped his base-stealing with the Dodgers, but reached Triple-A for just a game. He was dealt again in January 2018, this time to Kansas City in a three-team trade headlined by Joakim Soria. Mejia debuted with the Royals in 2019. He went 5-for-22 over nine games. Mejia got another brief shot with the big-league club during the shortened 2020 season, going 1-for-14 in eight appearances.

After a season at Triple-A with Seattle in 2022, Mejia landed with the Nationals. He struggled mightily at the plate in two seasons at Triple-A with the organization. A 61 wRC+ in 66 games with the Red Wings in 2024 prompted the position switch. Given Mejia’s intriguing strikeout numbers in the minors, along with Washington’s current trajectory, it’s not unthinkable that he could find himself on a big-league mound in 2026.

Photo courtesy of Jim Rassol, Imagn Images

NL Notes: Gallen, Pozo, Nationals, Aydt

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“I would love to be back here.  I would love to be here for the rest of my career,” Zac Gallen told Arizona Sports’ Alex Weiner and other reporters during a recent community event in Phoenix.  As to whether a new contract with the Diamondbacks is possible, Gallen was more circumspect, saying “I think what sometimes gets lost in translation is that’s not necessarily always up to the player.  If the opportunity is there and it’s something that we deem is the right fit for us, as myself as a player and for me and my soon-to-be wife as a family, then yeah, we’ll explore that.  But right now we’re just going through the process and we’ll see what happens.”

Gallen is one of the more intriguing free agent pitchers available, as a former Cy Young candidate and top-of-the-rotation who is hitting the market on the heels of the worst season of his career.  Though Gallen finished strong over the last two months of 2025, his 4.83 ERA and 21.5% strikeout rate were career lows, and batters took Gallen yard to the tune of 31 home runs.

MLBTR still projects Gallen for a four-year, $80MM free agent deal, yet it is possible he and agent Scott Boras might explore a shorter-term contract with opt-outs attached, so Gallen could potentially re-enter the market as early next winter after a better platform season.  Such a contractual scenario might make a reunion with the pitching-needy D’Backs more plausible, though it remains unclear exactly how much Arizona might have to spend this offseason.

More from around the National League…

  • Though the Cardinals non-tendered Yohel Pozo yesterday, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the team is interested in working out a new deal to re-sign the catcher.  Though the Cards have four other catchers (Ivan Herrera, Pedro Pages, Jimmy Crooks, and top prospect Leonardo Bernal) on their 40-man roster, Herrera’s injury history might require a return to the DH role, and Bernal has yet to play any Triple-A ball.  Re-signing Pozo, as Goold notes, would therefore give the Cardinals some more depth behind the plate, at least until they can gauge Herrera’s readiness during Spring Training.  Of Pozo’s 88 career MLB games, 67 were with St. Louis last season, and he hit .231/.262/.375 over 168 plate appearances.
  • The Nationals will be hiring Andrew Aydt as an assistant hitting coach, the Washington Post’s Andrew Golden reports.  Aydt is Driveline Baseball’s assistant director of hitting, and becomes the second ex-Driveline staffer to join the Nats’ coaching ranks after pitching coach Simon Matthews.  This will be Aydt’s first job with a pro organization (though he has worked with several big leaguers during his time at Driveline), and he continues the trend of younger, analytically-driven hires under new Washington president of baseball operations Paul Toboni.  Aydt will move into the Nationals’ assistant hitting coach role even though the team has yet to hire a lead hitting coach to replace Darnell Coles.

National League Non-Tenders: 11/21/25

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Every National League team has officially announced their non-tender decisions. It was a quiet evening in terms of subtractions, with only the Rangers parting with any marquee players. All players who were non-tendered are free agents without going on waivers. A few teams dropped pre-arbitration players from the back of the 40-man roster. It’s possible they preferred not to expose them to waivers and are hopeful of re-signing them to non-roster deals.

Here’s a full list of today’s activity in the NL, while the American League moves are available here. All projected salaries are courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.

  • The Braves announced that right-handers Alek Manoah and Carson Ragsdale were not tendered contracts. Both had been acquired earlier in the offseason via waivers, and both are now free agents. Manoah was projected to earn $2.2MM. Ragsdale was not arb-eligible.
  • The Brewers tendered contracts to their entire arbitration class, per Adam McCalvy of MLB.com.
  • The Cardinals chose not to tender contracts to lefty John King, catcher Yohel Pozo and righty Sem Robberse, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Jorge Alcala, who was designated for assignment earlier this week, was also non-tendered, John Denton of MLB.com adds. King and Alcala were both projected for a $2.1MM salary. The others were not arb-eligible.
  • The Cubs non-tendered catcher Reese McGuire, per ESPN’s Jesse Rogers. He hit .226/.245/.444 through 140 plate appearances in a backup catcher role and was arb-eligible for the final time. He’d been projected to earn $1.9MM. Right-hander Eli Morgan, who was projected to earn $1.1MM, was also non-tendered, according to MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian.
  • The D-backs non-tendered left-hander Tommy Henry, who’d already been designated for assignment, and right-hander Taylor Rashi. Neither was eligible for arbitration. They tendered contracts to their entire arb class.
  • The Dodgers did not tender a contract to closer Evan Phillips, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. He was only under club control for one more season and projected for a $6.1MM salary but underwent Tommy John surgery in June. Dodgers righty Nick Frasso, who was not arb-eligible and finished the season on the 60-day IL, was also non-tendered, per Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic.
  • The Giants non-tendered left-hander Joey Lucchesi, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Lucchesi pitched to a solid 3.76 ERA with a below-average 18.8% strikeout rate and strong 7.3% walk rate in 38 1/3 innings and had been projected for a $2MM salary. San Francisco also non-tendered catcher Andrew Knizner, who was designated for assignment this afternoon when the Giants acquired Joey Wiemer from Miami.
  • The Marlins tendered contracts to all of their eligible players, per Isaac Azout of Fish On First.
  • The Mets are non-tendering right-hander Max Kranick, according to Will Sammon of The Athletic. Kranick, 28, posted a 3.65 ERA in 37 innings with the Mets this year. It was his first big league opportunity since a five-inning cameo with the Pirates back in 2022. Kranick’s season came to an abrupt end back in July due to flexor tendon repair surgery. Southpaws Jose Castillo and Danny Young were also non-tendered, Sammon adds. Young had Tommy John surgery back in May. Castillo was a waiver claim who pitched for four different teams in 2025.
  • The Nationals tendered contracts to their entire roster, per a team announcement.
  • The Padres announced that lefty Omar Cruz and righty Sean Reynolds were non-tendered. Neither was arbitration-eligible. They tendered contracts to every member of their arbitration class.
  • The Phillies non-tendered righties Michael Mercado and Daniel Robert, neither of whom was arbitration-eligible. They’re both free agents. The Phils tendered contracts to all of their arb-eligible players otherwise.
  • The Pirates non-tendered outfielders Alexander Canario and Ronny Simon, as well as righties Colin Holderman and Dauri Moreta. All four were designated for assignment earlier in the week. Holderman was projected for a $1.7MM salary and Moreta for $800K. The others weren’t arb-eligible.
  • The Reds announced that catcher Will Banfield and right-handers Carson Spiers and Roddery Munoz were not tendered contracts. They’re all free agents. None of the three were arbitration-eligible, but by non-tendering them rather than designating them for assignment, Cincinnati bypasses the need to place them on waivers and can try to quickly re-sign any of the bunch to minor league deals, if the Reds are so inclined.
  • The Rockies non-tendered first baseman Michael Toglia, the team announced. He’d been designated for assignment earlier in the week, making today’s non-tender all but a formality.

Players Avoiding Arbitration: 11/21/25

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The deadline for teams to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players is this afternoon at 4pm CT. Throughout the day, we’ll surely see a handful of arb-eligible players agree to terms with their clubs to avoid a hearing.

These so-called “pre-tender deals” usually, although not always, involve players who were borderline non-tender candidates. Rather than run the risk of being cut loose, they can look to sign in the lead-up to the deadline. Those salaries often come in a little below projections, since these players tend to have less leverage because of the uncertainty about whether they’ll be offered a contract at all.

Under the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement, players who sign to avoid an arbitration hearing are guaranteed full termination pay. That’s a change from prior CBAs, when teams could release an arb-eligible player before the season began and would only owe a prorated portion of the contract. This was done to incentivize teams and players to get deals done without going to a hearing.

All salary projections in this post come via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz. This post will be updated throughout the day as deals are announced and/or reported. Salary figures are from The Associated Press unless otherwise noted.

Photo courtesy of William Liang, Imagn Images

Marlins To Hire Craig Driver As First Base Coach

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The Marlins are hiring Dodgers catching coordinator Craig Driver away as their new first base coach, reports Craig Mish of SportsGrid. He’ll replace Tyler Smarslok, who held that role in 2025 but is leaving the organization to become the new field coordinator for the division-rival Nationals, per a report from Andrew Golden and Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post.

Driver is plenty familiar with Marlins skipper Clayton McCullough, with whom he worked during on the Dodgers’ 2024 coaching staff. Driver spent the 2024-25 seasons as L.A.’s catching coordinator. McCullough was the Dodgers’ first base coach from 2021-24. Prior to his time with the Dodgers, Driver spent several seasons as the Cubs’ first base coach and catching coach. He was a bullpen catcher and “receiving coach” with the Phillies for a couple years before heading to Chicago.

A catcher during his NCAA days, Driver went undrafted and jumped into the college coaching ranks upon graduation. His final stint in college ball was in 2016-17, when he was the catching coach at Yale. He’s been working in pro ball since 2018.

Miami’s coaching staff isn’t turning over all that much in 2026. Driver is one of three known newcomers at present, joining newly hired assistant hitting coaches Chris Hess and Corbin Day, who came over from the Red Sox and Twins organizations, respectively, where they’d been minor league coaches/instructors. Last year’s assistant hitting coach, Derek Shomon, left the Fish to take the lead hitting coach job with the White Sox.

Nationals Select Three Players To 40-Man Roster

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The Nationals announced that they have selected the contracts of three players. They are outfielder Christian Franklin, left-hander Jake Bennett and right-hander Riley Cornelio. All three are now protected from being selected in next month’s Rule 5 draft. The club’s 40-man roster count climbs from 34 to 37.

Franklin, 26 this month, was just acquired from the Cubs in the deadline deal which sent Michael Soroka to Chicago. A fourth-round pick from the 2021 draft, Franklin is generally considered good at a lot of things without a standout tool.

Between the Nats and Cubs, he spent all of 2025 at the Triple-A level, stepping to the plate 535 times in total. His 15% walk rate and 20.6% strikeout rate were both above average, though he hit only 12 home runs. His .272/.390/.427 batting line translated to a 118 wRC+, indicating he was 18% above league average. He played all three outfield spots and stole 19 bases. He’s not really considered a top prospect but he has shown enough to get a 40-man spot. He’ll look to work his way into the Washington outfield mix, a group that currently includes James Wood, Jacob Young, Robert Hassell III, Dylan Crews, Daylen Lile and others.

Bennett, 25 next month, was Washington’s second-round pick in 2022. He was taken 45th overall and secured a signing bonus of over $1.7MM. He has since been climbing the ladder, although Tommy John surgery in 2023 led to him missing the 2024 season. Here in 2025, he got back on track by logging 75 1/3 innings over 19 appearances, 18 of those officially being starts. He allowed just 2.27 earned runs per nine with a 21.5% strikeout rate, 6.4% walk rate and 47.3% ground ball rate. He just appeared in the Arizona Fall League and added another 20 innings.

Baseball America recently ranked Bennett the #6 prospect in Washington’s system. He hasn’t yet appeared at the Triple-A level but his final ten appearances in 2025 were at Double-A, so bumping up to the top minor league rung should be on the table next year. The Nats don’t have a ton of established arms in the rotation and might even subtract from the group by dealing MacKenzie Gore this offseason. Since they may be rebuilding for another year or two, Bennett could push his way into a major league audition at some point in the near future.

Cornelio, 26 in June, was a seventh-round pick from 2022. In 2025, he climbed from High-A to Double-A to Triple-A. In the process, he threw 134 1/3 innings with a 3.28 ERA, 24.8% strikeout rate, 10.1% walk rate and 37.6% ground ball rate. A few months ago, FanGraphs ranked him #36 in the system, projecting him to end up as a reliever in the long run. The Nats now have three option years, so they could keep trying him as a starter for a while or perhaps move him to the bullpen if they agree that’s where his future lies.

Photo courtesy of Lily Smith, Imagn Images.

Looking For A Match In A CJ Abrams Trade

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The Nationals are in a new era. Their stalled rebuild led ownership to fire president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez. Paul Toboni is now leading a front office for the first time, while the club brought in a rookie manager in 33-year-old Blake Butera. It's easy to imagine Toboni making a couple significant trades to add a needed influx of talent to the farm system.

"We're in the business right now of just bringing in as much value as we can to the organization," the new baseball operations president said from the GM Meetings (link via Spencer Nusbaum of The Washington Post). "However that may look, we’ll stay disciplined to that." The most obvious place would be to entertain conversations on left-hander MacKenzie Gore and shortstop CJ Abrams. Gore is down to two years of arbitration control and projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $4.7MM salary. Abrams' $5.6MM projection is a little higher, but he has three years of remaining control.

This feels like the opportune time to move Gore. Any team in a short-term contention window could be interested. He's at least a mid-rotation arm with the upside of a #2 starter. The Nationals could hear from two-thirds of the league about his availability.

Whether to trade Abrams is a tougher call. The Nats presumably expect to compete for a playoff spot within three years. There's less injury risk with a position player than there is with a pitcher. The Nationals could view the 25-year-old shortstop as the kind of core piece whom they're more or less unwilling to trade. At the same time, Abrams has been maddeningly inconsistent over the past couple seasons. He's a gifted athlete who is nevertheless prone to defensive miscues. This may just depend on how a Toboni-led front office that didn't acquire Abrams views the player.

Abrams is coming off a .257/.315/.433 line with 19 home runs through 635 plate appearances. He has hit between 18-20 longballs in each of the past three seasons. Abrams has stolen 31 bases in consecutive seasons and ranks sixth in MLB with 109 steals since the start of 2023. He won't walk much, but he puts the ball in play with middle-of-the-road exit velocities. At his best, he looks the part of a top-of-the-order spark plug. He's coming off a second straight season in which he was only at that level for a few months. Abrams was a star-level performer in the first half of each of the past two years, but he slumped after the All-Star Break both times.

He's not much easier to pin down defensively. Abrams certainly has the frame and athleticism of a shortstop. He has been far too mistake-prone, however, with only Elly De La Cruz committing more errors over the past few seasons. Most of them have been related to poor accuracy. Abrams was charged with 18 throwing errors this year, three more than anyone else. He has committed 38 throwing errors over the past three seasons. As one might expect given all the easy misses, Statcast has graded Abrams as by far the sport's worst defensive shortstop in that time.

Other teams could have differing views on Abrams' defensive projection. There are presumably some who feel he's non-viable at shortstop and would only consider him at second base or as a potential center field conversion. Others could feel the throwing issues can be cleaned up with mechanical tweaks. They could also be motivated out of some amount of desperation considering the lack of alternatives. Bo Bichette could command upwards of $200MM and faces his own defensive questions. Only one team can sign Ha-Seong Kim, and he doesn't have anywhere near the same offensive ceiling that Abrams has flashed. There aren't many clear options on the trade front.

If the Nationals were to trade Abrams, which clubs should make the biggest push? Let's split them into a few groups. Teams are listed alphabetically within each tier.

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