The Nationals have designated infielder Wilmer Difo for assignment and called infielder Carter Kieboom back up from their alternate training site, the team announced. The move reinstalls Kieboom as the Nats’ everyday third baseman, manager Davey Martinez told MASNsports.com’s Mark Zuckerman and other reporters today.
Kieboom was optioned to the alternate site 10 days ago, making his stay in Fredericksburg a minimal one. The demotion raised some eyebrows at the time, though Kieboom had only hit .200/.359/.200 through his first 64 plate appearances for Washington this season. While the club may have been opting to use more experienced players than Kieboom in an attempt to turn the season around, the Nationals’ 2-10 record over their last 12 games has sunk them to last place in the NL East, and they now seem to be looking ahead to 2021.
Despite his lack of production (.535 OPS) over 107 PA at the big league level, the 23-year-old Kieboom is clearly still seen as a big part of the Nationals’ future. The 28th overall pick of the 2016 draft has posted a .287/.378/.469 slash line and 45 homers over 1462 minor league PA and has little left to prove on the farm, which is why D.C. was hoping Kieboom could slide right into an everyday role this season and at least somewhat fill the void left behind by free agent departure Anthony Rendon.
Since it seems like Kieboom will spend the rest of the season on Washington’s MLB roster, the youngster is still on pace to gain a full year of (prorated) service time, as Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post notes. Kieboom’s demotion won’t, therefore, give the Nats an extra year of control over Kieboom’s services.
Now in his 11th season in the Nationals organization, Difo has a .247/.309/.348 career slash line over 1060 Major League PA, coming off the bench to play second base, shortstop, third base, and a handful of games in the outfield. After seeing semi-regular action in both 2017 and 2018, Difo spent much of last season in the minors, and he didn’t appear on the Nats’ postseason roster. Washington agreed to a $1MM salary for Difo in 2020, which was his first year of arbitration eligibility.
KIEBOOM !! Here comes the Nationals to the World Series !!
where are all the posts calling Kieboom a bust? Oh, that’s right, he’s not a Braves’ player.
Why would Kieboom – or for that matter, ANY position player – be judged based on 89 career AB’s?
Kieboom is a failure. Gomes is a failure. Thames is a fsilure,. The Lerners refuse to spend money on top talent and to trade. They played on young kids and fans this year. Rizzo did absolutely nothing to improve, but the rest of the MLB did. Rizzo and the lerners got what they deserve. Rizzo is a joke. They played too poorly to make trades? That is just stupid. Young kids had Hope’s and dreams and the Nats organization BAMBOOZLED them. The Lerners and Rizzo are disgraceful
I see you adhere VERY strictly to the “what have you done for me lately” approach. Come on man! It’s a weird, short season that really doesn’t have much meaning because the Nats still look like a good team, albeit, one that had underperformed. But that is the reality of a short season. One bad stretch can sink a season like this one. I don’t blame them on not wanting to spend during a year that looks more like a novelty than a real season. The new postseason format rewards mediocrity and makes it even harder for good teams to reap the rewards for winning. We might even see a team with a loosing record make it in and catch fire for a few weeks and win it all. All around, it’s a joke. I love that baseball is back and I’ve enjoyed watching, but calling foul for players not performing over a short season and decrying the GM and Owners of any team for their team performance this year is ignorant.
It was a known fact the Nationals would not be able to hold the team together last year unless MASN got solved.or davidmcleen2k72 incorporated invested 200M+ into the team to cover the additional salary it would have taken to keep rondon and strasburg.. I probably would have kept Rondon considering Strasburg injury history but cant fault them with either player as stras was their best pitcher and rondon was their best position player. Outside of Rondon the rest of the team is the same team that won the world series last year.
With all the deferrals the team going to have to account for very soon it will be hard for them to not have to rely on their top prospects to remain within luxury tax. The Lerners will spend but the fact the tv deal is still in limbo hinders them a lot on what they will and will not do.
davidmclean2k72@gmail.com – put down the bottle