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Drew Millas

Drew Millas Undergoes Finger Surgery

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August 29: Millas underwent season-ending surgery on his left index finger, interim manager Miguel Cairo tells reporters (including Bobby Blanco of MASNsports.com). He’s expected to be ready for Spring Training.

August 27: The Nationals announced today that catcher Drew Millas has been diagnosed with a fracture and dislocation of his left second finger. He had been removed from today’s game after Austin Wells made contact with his hand on a swing.

At this point, it’s unclear how much time Millas is expected to miss, but a stint on the injured list feels assured. That will inevitably lead to a roster move of some kind. Millas and Riley Adams are the only two healthy catchers on the 40-man roster right now.

Keibert Ruiz is currently on the concussion IL. His last game was July 5th and he still hasn’t begun a rehab assignment. Just over a week ago, Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com provided an update on Ruiz. He had begun doing some first base drills, not for a positional switch, but just to get him on the field and tracking baseballs without putting him at any real risk of exacerbating his situation.

The Ruiz injury opened up playing time for Millas and he had been making the most of it. He has a .313/.365/.458 slash line in 54 plate appearances this year. He likely wasn’t going to hit at that level forever but it’s nonetheless frustrating for him to have this injury get in the way of his progress.

The Nats are off on Thursday but will need to provide Adams with a backup by Friday. Their non-roster options aren’t terribly inspiring. Francisco Mejia in in Triple-A and has major league experience but he’s hitting .178/.222/.287 this year. CJ Stubbs and Brady Lindsly are also non-roster options but they have no major league experience and are also having poor seasons. Stubbs has a .148/.279/.240 line this year and Lindsly’s is .137/.267/.216.

Perhaps the Nats could look to find a catcher outside the organization. The trade deadline has passed but deals can still happen under certain conditions, such as for players on minor league deals that have not been selected to the majors this year. The Nationals could therefore try to trade for someone like Jakson Reetz of the Orioles, Payton Henry of the Phillies or Brian Serven of the Tigers.

It’s also possible that some catchers end up on waivers this week. Late August is a popular time for waiver activity. That’s due to the fact that a player claimed in September is not postseason eligible with his new club. For clubs falling out of contention who would like to save some money, this time of the year is the best to put a guy on the wire and hope another club grabs his contract. Though for the Nats, they may not want to spend thousands of dollars for a Band-Aid in a lost season.

Photo courtesy of Rafael Suanes, Imagn Images

Nationals To Select CJ Stubbs

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The Nationals are going to select catcher CJ Stubbs to the roster, reports Andrew Golden of The Washington Post. He will take the active roster spot of fellow backstop Drew Millas, who suffered a finger fracture earlier today. The Nationals already have two vacancies on the 40-man roster, so no corresponding move will be required in that department.

Stubbs, 28, gets the call to the big leagues for the first time. The younger brother of Phillies catcher Garrett Stubbs, CJ spent most of his career in the Astros’ minor league system. He was released in May of 2024 and then landed a minor league deal with the Nationals.

He has been a decent hitter in the minors at times but isn’t having a great season. From 2022 to 2024, he had a combined .202/.323/.404 slash line and 98 wRC+. But this year, between Double-A and Triple-A, he has a .148/.279/.240 line and 57 wRC+. His 11.6% walk rate is good but he’s also been striking out 37.3% of the time. Baseball Prospectus gives him strong grades for his framing on the farm.

The Nationals currently have three catchers on their 40-man roster. Keibert Ruiz has been on the concussion injured list for over a month and doesn’t appear close to a return. That left Millas and Riley Adams as the two active catchers. With Millas getting injured today, Adams was the only healthy backstop on the roster. Stubbs will step in, presumably in a backup role, and will make his major league debut as soon as he gets into a game.

Photo courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images

Nationals Sign Luis Garcia

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July 8th: The Nationals have now officially announced the signing of Garcia. Right-hander Eduardo Salazar has been optioned to Triple-A Rochester as the corresponding active roster move. Righty Trevor Williams has been transferred to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man spot. Williams was just placed on the 15-day IL a few days ago due to an elbow sprain. It appears the Nats don’t expect him to return before September. Washington also recalled catcher Drew Millas and placed catcher Keibert Ruiz on the seven-day concussion-related IL.

July 6th: The Nationals have signed right-hander Luis Garcia to a Major League contract, the Washington Post’s Andrew Golden reports.  The deal will become official when the 38-year-old Garcia passes a physical.

It didn’t take long for Garcia to find a new landing spot, as the Dodgers only just released the veteran reliever on Friday.  Garcia signed a minor league deal with Los Angeles last winter and broke camp with the team, but his struggled during his time on the big league roster.  Garcia posted a 5.27 ERA and 12.7% walk rate over 27 1/3 innings, and spent about a month on the injured list recovering from an adductor strain.

There have been plenty of ups and downs for Garcia over his 13 MLB seasons, which isn’t surprising for a grounder specialist who relies a lot of batted-ball luck.  His most sustained stretch of success came fairly recently, as Garcia posted a 3.62 ERA, 23.4% strikeout rate, and 7.4% walk rate across 154 relief innings for the Cardinals and Padres from 2021-23.  Those results led to a one-year, $4.25MM free agent deal with the Angels during the 2023-24 offseason, and Garcia continued to pitch decently well before his production dipped after a deadline trade to the Red Sox.

Washington has one of the league’s worst bullpens, so there’s not much risk for the Nats in taking a flier to see if Garcia can bounce back from his rough showing in L.A.  If he really pitches well between now and the July 31 trade deadline, the Nationals could even look to quickly flip Garcia elsewhere for a low-level minor leaguer.

Once Garcia gets into a game with his new club, he will have pitched with eight different teams at the big league level over the course of his long career.  This is actually the second Dodgers-to-Nationals trip Garcia has taken — after beginning his career as an international prospect in Los Angeles’ farm system, the Dodgers dealt Garcia to the Nats way back in August 2009.  Garcia didn’t see any big league action during his year-plus in the Washington organization, and didn’t end up making his MLB debut until he was a 26-year-old pitching with the Phillies in 2013.  (By coincidence, Garcia pitched against the Nats in his first Major League game.)

Nationals Place Trevor Williams On Injured List With Elbow Sprain

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The Nationals announced a series of roster moves this morning, headlined by their placement of right-hander Trevor Williams on the 15-day injured list due to a right elbow sprain. Right-hander Ryan Loutos was recalled to the MLB roster to replace Williams. In an additional move, Washington has activated catcher Keibert Ruiz from the 7-day concussion-related injured list and optioned catcher Drew Millas to Triple-A.

Williams, 33, has been part of the Nationals’ rotation all year but struggled badly with his results. The righty is sporting a 6.21 ERA across 17 starts and 82 2/3 innings this year. That’s the third-worst figure in baseball among pitchers with at least 80 innings of work this year. Brutal as the results have been, it’s perhaps worth noting that Williams has gotten quite unlucky according to the underlying metrics. His .347 BABIP allowed is nearly fifty points higher than his career mark, and a 61.6% strand rate suggests he’s been the victim of poor sequencing as well. Williams’s 4.08 FIP and 4.45 FIP paint him as a roughly average fifth starter based on his performance this year, despite the rough run prevention numbers.

In terms of strikeout and walk rate, Williams hasn’t been all that different than 2024. Last year saw him pitch to a dazzling 2.03 ERA in 66 2/3 innings, but his results then were much better than the metrics suggested they should have been. Taken together, Williams’s strong but abbreviated 2024 and his brutal first half this year paint a picture of a mid-to-back of the rotation arm: 30 starts, a 4.34 ERA, a 3.51 FIP, and a 4.23 SIERA. Perhaps there would’ve been a pitching-needy club or two who would have viewed Williams as a decent innings-eating arm to bet on for a low-cost flier this summer, but today’s injury news will throw a wrench into that possibility.

The exact details surrounding Williams’s injury are not yet known, but any injury involving a pitcher’s elbow is concerning and will typically be treated with an abundance of caution to avoid further damage. Williams figures to be out for several weeks at the very least and could miss much longer than that. A clearer timeline for his return to action figures to be available with time, but Mark Zuckerman of MASN reports that Williams himself suggested that the injury is “comparable” to the flexor strain that cost him more than three months last year. A similar timeline for his recovery this time around would likely put an end to his 2025 campaign.

For the time being, Williams will be replaced on the roster by Loutos. The righty was plucked off waivers from the Dodgers earlier this year but has surrendered eight runs (six earned) in just 4 1/3 innings during his time in a Nationals uniform. He’ll help eat innings for now, but the club will need to replace Williams in the rotation eventually. Cade Cavalli and Shinnosuke Ogasawara are both on the 40-man roster and could be called upon, though Cavalli has struggled at Triple-A this year while Ogasawara is currently pitching at High-A as he works his way back from an injury.

As for Ruiz, the catcher was placed on the 10-day IL after being struck by a foul ball while in the dugout on June 24, but was later moved to the concussion-related IL after experiencing headaches. He figures to resume getting the lion’s share of playing time behind the plate going forward, with Riley Adams serving as his backup. The eight-year, $50MM extension the Nats signed Ruiz to prior to the 2023 season hasn’t worked out so far, and he’s hitting just .247/.278/.320 in 66 games this year. Even so, the former top prospect is still just 26 years old and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that his numbers could improve given how common it is for catchers to be relatively late bloomers at the big league level.

Nationals Place Alex Call On 10-Day Injured List

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The Nationals have placed outfielder Alex Call on the 10-day injured list due to a partial left plantar fascia tear.  As initially noted by The Nats Report X feed, catcher Drew Millas will be promoted from Triple-A to take Call’s spot on the active roster.

While pursuing a pop-up in the second inning of yesterday’s 3-2 Nationals loss to the Braves, Call fell to the ground in obvious pain, and he had to be carted off the field.  As ominous as the injury looked, Call told reporters that he has been trying to play through a case of plantar fasciitis, and the Talk Nats feed reported earlier today that an MRI indeed revealed a fascia tear rather than initial concerns of a torn Achilles or a broken foot.

Call will visit a specialist to determine how to best proceed with treatment, and since the Nationals aren’t in contention, the chance exists that Call might just be shut down for the remainder of the season if his recovery period will stretch too close to the end of the season.  Some fascia tears can prove beneficial overall since a clean tear would lessen the ongoing discomfort in Call’s foot, but the Nats’ description of the injury as a partial tear leaves some doubt about Call’s situation.

It’s a tough setback for Call, who has quietly been one of baseball’s hottest hitters since Washington brought him up from Triple-A in July.  Between this hot stretch and a seven-game stint on the Nationals’ roster earlier this season, Call is hitting .343/.425/.525 with three homers over 113 plate appearances in 2024.  A hefty .403 BABIP is doing a lot of the heavy lifting on that production, but Call has been doing his part by making a lot of contact and also getting on base via a 10.6% walk rate.

After Lane Thomas was traded to the Guardians at the deadline, Call stepped into the everyday right field job and cemented himself in the lineup with his hot bat.  In terms of how D.C. will fill the spot now that Call is injured, the replacement is coming on Monday when star prospect Dylan Crews will make his Major League debut.  Call’s IL placement didn’t change the timeline on Crews’ promotion, so Joey Gallo or Ildemaro Vargas figure to handle right field duties this weekend until Crews arrives Monday.

Nationals Select Drew Millas

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The Nationals announced that they have selected the contract of catcher Drew Millas, a move that seemed to be coming since it was reported yesterday that Millas was travelling with the club to Toronto. In corresponding moves, outfielder Blake Rutherford was optioned after yesterday’s game while righty Carl Edwards Jr. was transferred to the 60-day injured list.

Millas, now 25, was originally drafted by the Athletics in 2019 but came to the Nats in the 2021 deadline deal that sent Yan Gomes and Josh Harrison the other way. He has since climbed his way up the minor league ladder, finishing last year at Double-A. Coming into this year, he was considered the club’s #25 prospect by Baseball America, who highlighted his defense but expressed concerns about his aggressiveness at the plate, with Millas having been punched out in 31.4% of his Double-A plate appearances last year.

He started this year back at Double-A and showed a great deal of improvement. In 99 plate appearances, he struck out at just a 16.2% clip and slashed .341/.455/.537, getting promoted to Triple-A in late May. FanGraphs then published its list of top prospects in the system in early June, bumping Millas up to the #6 spot. Since getting up to Triple-A, he’s taken 229 trips to the plate over 58 games. He drew walks at a 11.4% rate and struck out at a 14.4% strikeout clip while hitting .270/.362/.403 and will now get a bump to the majors.

The Nats will now have a three-catcher setup a tad earlier than usual, as such roster alignments are popular around the league when rosters expand in September. Millas will join Keibert Ruiz and Riley Adams as the club’s catching trio for the time being, perhaps for the remainder of the season. The club has been playing well of late but are still well below .500 and eight games out of a playoff spot, meaning they are still clearly focused on the future.

Ruiz is hitting around a league average rate this year but his defensive marks aren’t great, including -11 Defensive Runs Saved and negative grades for his framing from both FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus. Nonetheless, he is fairly settled in as the club’s primary backstop, having signed an eight-year extension back in March. Adams is also graded poorly for his glovework but has a strong .278/.338/.489 batting line for the year. Most of that damage has come against lefties, as the right-handed hitter is slashing .349/.414/.603 with the platoon advantage. The Nats will have the final month-plus of the schedule to sprinkle playing time around to these three and determine how to proceed in future seasons.

As for Edwards, his transfer is little more than a formality. He’s already been on the injured list longer than 60 days, having landed there on June 21. He’s eligible to be reinstated whenever he’s healthy, but that isn’t likely to be in the near future as he was recently diagnosed with a stress fracture in his throwing shoulder and shut down.

NL East Notes: Robertson, Albies, Nationals

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When the Marlins shipped a pair of intriguing young prospects to New York in order to acquire veteran right-hander David Robertson from the Mets, it was a statement of intent to contend by Miami, as they acquired perhaps the top rental reliever available at this year’s trade deadline. It was Robertson’s second time being dealt at the deadline in as many years, as the 38-year-old veteran was swapped from the Cubs to the Phillies in exchange for pitching prospect Ben Brown 13 months ago. Sporting a 2.23 ERA in 40 1/3 innings of work at the time of that deal, Robertson went on to post similarly excellent numbers in Philadelphia with a 2.70 ERA in 22 regular season appearances down the stretch and just one run allowed in his eight postseason appearances as the Phillies headed to the World Series for the first time since 2009.

At the time of this year’s deal, Robertson was having an even better season, with a 2.05 ERA in 44 innings of work with a 27.9% strikeout rate. Unfortunately for the Marlins, he hasn’t been the shutdown closer they were expecting in ten appearances with the club. He’s posted a brutal 7.20 ERA and 6.17 FIP in ten innings since joining Miami, with just four saves in seven chances. Those brutal results have led the Marlins to remove their veteran deadline addition from the closer role entirely, according to Craig Mish of the Miami Herald. Mish suggests Tanner Scott, who sports a 2.59 ERA and 2.12 FIP in 59 innings of work this season, could replace Robertson as the club’s closer moving forward.

The move reflects the dire situation Miami finds itself in after a difficult August; at the time of the Robertson deal, the club was 54-49 and firmly in the mix for one of the NL Wild Card spots. Since then, the Marlins have gone just 12-16, falling to 65-64 and three games back of the third Wild Card spot. While that’s hardly an insurmountable deficit with more than a month to go in the season, the club is facing playoff odds of just 19.4% at this point per Fangraphs, far worse than their 49.3% odds on the day of the Robertson deal.

More from the NL East…

  • Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies has been on the 10-day injured list since earlier this month with a hamstring strain, but could already be nearing a return. Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution relayed an update regarding Albies this evening, indicating that Atlanta will “see just how well he feels” tomorrow after a successful workout this afternoon. When Albies is ready to go, it seems he’ll be activated from the injured list directly, as Toscano notes that manager Brian Snitker has previously indicated the infielder won’t require a rehab assignment before returning to action. Albies, who sports a 121 wRC+ in 510 trips to the plate this season, has been covered for by Nicky Lopez and Vaughn Grissom at the keystone while he’s been on the shelf.
  • The Nationals announced this afternoon that the club had optioned outfielder Blake Rutherford to Triple-A. Rutherford, a 26-year-old journeyman and former first-round pick by the Yankees who made his MLB debut with Washington earlier this month, slashed just .182/.206/.182 in 34 trips to the plate with the Nationals prior to his demotion. Rutherford’s demotion sparked rumors regarding who would replace him on the active roster, with both Bobby Blanco and Mark Zuckerman of MASN indicating that the club could look to promote catching prospect Drew Millas. Millas, the club’s 23rd-best prospect per MLB Pipeline, is a defensive-first catcher who has impressed with the bat this season, batting .291/.390/.442 in 328 trips to the plate this season between the Double-A and Triple-A levels.
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