Nationals Select Amos Willingham

5:05pm: The Nationals have now made this official, selecting Willingham and optioning right-hander Paolo Espino to Triple-A as the corresponding move.

1:20pm: The Nationals are planning to call up right-hander Amos Willingham, reports Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Post. The club has an open spot on their 40-man roster but will need a corresponding move to get Willingham onto the active roster.

Willingham, 24, has spent his entire professional career with the Nationals, who selected him in the 17th round of the 2019 draft. He made a brief professional debut in Low-A that year before the minor leagues were canceled by the pandemic in 2020. Since then, he has been climbing up the minor league ladder, working exclusively as a reliever and seemingly getting better at almost every stop.

He split 2021 between Single-A and High-A, tossing 60 1/3 innings with a 4.92 ERA, 21% strikeout rate and 9.4% walk rate. He spent all of last year in High-A with a 3.41 ERA over 34 1/3 innings, striking out 27.6% of opponents while walking just 4.8%. He began this year at Double-A and carved up hitters at that level, throwing 10 2/3 scoreless innings with a 35% strikeout rate and 2.5% walk rate. That excellent showing got him bumped to Triple-A, where he finally slowed down a bit, posting a 3.46 ERA through 13 innings with a 20% strikeout rate and 14.5% walk rate.

Despite the relatively tepid Triple-A performance, Willingham has clearly impressed the Washington brass with his ascent in recent years. He’s started getting noticed outside the organization as well, with Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs ranking him the club’s #25 prospect earlier this month. Longenhagen writes that Willingham’s fastball is “now sitting 94-95 mph with big ride at the top of the zone” and that he can take a step forward if he improves his slider command.

The Nats will give Willingham a shot to see how his stuff plays against big league hitters while giving manager Dave Martinez a fresh arm for the bullpen. When the club starts tonight’s game in Seattle, it will be their 14th day in a row taking the field with two more scheduled against the Mariners before an off-day on Thursday.