Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Zach Brzykcy

Nationals Place Four Players On Injured List

By | at

The Nationals announced a series of roster moves to set up their Opening Day roster, including four injured-list placements retroactive to March 24.  Right-handers Derek Law (forearm inflammation) and Zach Brzykcy (right quad strain) are both headed to the 15-day IL, infielder Andres Chaparro (oblique strain) is going to the 10-day IL, and right-hander Cade Cavalli was placed on the 15-day IL as he enters the final stages of his recovery from Tommy John surgery.

DJ Herz was moved from the 15-day to the 60-day IL as he could be facing a Tommy John procedure of his own in the wake of a UCL tear.  Herz’s transfer opens up a 40-man roster spot the Nats to select the contract of right-hander Brad Lord, in a move that was reported earlier today.  Finally, D.C. also optioned first/baseman outfielder Juan Yepez and righty Jackson Rutledge to Triple-A, and catcher Andrew Knizner was reassigned to Triple-A.

As Spencer Nusbaum of the Washington Post wrote last weekend, Law’s injury dates back to last season, when the reliever missed just under three weeks in late August and early September due to a flexor strain in his throwing elbow.  Though Law was able to return in relatively short order, the discomfort lingered through the winter and into Spring Training, and Law pitched in only one game during the Nationals’ Grapefruit League schedule.  The team had already planned to limit Law’s spring workload in the wake of his 90-inning campaign last season, but the forearm issue kept him off the mound almost entirely.

Manager Davey Martinez said Law’s MRI came back clean and the injury isn’t thought to be too serious, with Law saying he believes he’ll be back when first eligible for activation on April 8.  Law was one of the game’s most valuable workhorses last season, tossing 90 innings of 2.60 ball over 75 appearances for the Nationals.

Brzykcy also pitched just once this spring, as his quad strain has kept him out of game action for over a month.  The righty has started throwing bullpens again, so he is at least partway through the ramp-up process even if it seems like Brzykcy could miss more than the 15-day minimum given how little he pitched in the spring.

Brzykcy was an undrafted free agent from the 2020 class (the year the draft was shortened to five rounds due to the pandemic) who signed with the Nats that summer.  He made his MLB debut last season, and was hit hard to the tune of a 14.29 ERA over the small sample size of 5 2/3 innings and six appearances.  Brzykcy didn’t pitch in 2023 due to a Tommy John surgery, but his overall impressive minor league numbers made him a candidate to win a job in the Nationals’ bullpen this winter before his quad strain ended his bid.

Chaparro is another player who made his big-league debut in 2024, and he hit .215/.280/.413 with four home runs in his first 132 plate appearances in the Show.  While the presence of the newly-acquired Nathaniel Lowe and Josh Bell may have hurt Chaparro’s chances of winning a bench job as a backup first baseman and outfielder, he was posting big numbers in camp before hurting his oblique during a batting practice session.  The uncertain nature of oblique injuries leaves Chaparro’s recovery timeline somewhat up in the air, but a best-case scenario would probably see him activated by mid-April.

Without Chaparro, Yepez, or Knizner, Washington’s bench now consists of Riley Adams in the backup catcher role, veteran Amed Rosario, Jose Tena as the primary backup infielder, and Alex Call as the fourth outfielder.  Between Law’s injury and the Nationals’ decision to option Rutledge, the Nationals went with Lord and rookie Orlando Ribalta for the last two bullpen spots.

Note: The initial version of this post erroneously stated that Cavalli was placed on the 60-day injured list. MLBTR apologizes for the error.

Nationals Activate Trevor Williams

By | at

September 20: The Nationals announced today that Williams has officially been reinstated, as expected. In corresponding moves, they optioned right-hander Zach Brzykcy and transferred Adon to the 60-day IL.

September 18: The Nationals are planning to reinstate Trevor Williams from the 60-day injured list on Friday, tweets Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com. The right-hander will get the start at Wrigley Field in his first MLB outing since the end of May. They’ll need to create a 40-man roster spot but could move Alex Call or Joan Adon to the 60-day IL if they don’t anticipate either player returning this season.

That would position Williams to make a pair of starts before the end of the season. It’s a bigger development for the pitcher than it is for the team. Washington is only trying to play spoiler at this point, but Williams is an impending free agent. The 32-year-old has been out for more than three months after being diagnosed with a flexor strain in his throwing arm. There’s only so much he can do in two starts to answer teams’ questions about his durability. That said, getting back on the mound and showing the caliber of stuff he had early in the season is certainly preferable to ending the year on the shelf.

The injury cut short one of the best stretches of Williams’ career. He worked to a 2.22 ERA in 56 2/3 innings covering 11 starts. He punched out an average 21% of batters faced while getting ground-balls at a 46% clip. Williams isn’t overpowering but he throws a lot of strikes and had dramatically changed his home run fortunes. He led the National League with 34 home runs allowed en route to a 5.55 earned run average over 30 starts last season. He’d surrendered just two longballs (0.32 per nine innings) through the first couple months this year.

There was some level of luck with Williams’ early-season results. He probably wouldn’t have maintained an ace-caliber ERA over a full season. Williams had clearly taken a step forward relative to last year, though, an improvement that coincided with an increased reliance on his breaking stuff at the expense of his four-seam fastball. The injury also robbed the rebuilding Nationals of a chance to flip Williams at the deadline. He won’t be a candidate for a qualifying offer, so they wouldn’t get any kind of compensation if he walks in free agency.

Washington has a rotation consisting of Jake Irvin, MacKenzie Gore, Mitchell Parker, DJ Herz and Patrick Corbin. Zuckerman notes that they’ll go to a six-man staff once Williams returns through season’s end. Corbin is playing out the final couple weeks of his $140MM free agent deal. The other four pitchers are under club control for an extended time.

Each of Irvin, Gore, Parker and Herz has turned in an ERA between 4.07 and 4.44 on the season. That group has tailed off in the second half, though, and none of them look like budding top-of-the-rotation arms. Gore probably has the highest ceiling, but he has yet to truly put everything together over an extended stretch. With Josiah Gray likely to miss next season and Cade Cavalli’s injury history, the Nats need to add at least one high-end starter if they hope to compete for a playoff spot in 2025.

Nationals Select Darren Baker

By | at

September 1: The Nationals have officially announced the selection of Baker’s contract. Right-hander Trevor Williams was transferred to the 60-day IL to make room for Baker on the 40-man roster, and righty Zach Brzykcy has been recalled from the minors to fill the additional pitching roster spot created by today’s roster expansion. Brzykcy’s first appearance will be his MLB debut. The righty’s impending call-up was firs reported by Talk Nats.

August 31: The Nationals are planning to select the contract of second baseman/left fielder Darren Baker on Sunday, according to the Talk Nats feed (X link).  Some space will need to be cleared on Washington’s 40-man roster, but a corresponding move on the active roster might not be necessary, since rosters expand from 26 to 28 players on Sunday.

A 10th-round pick for the Nats in the 2021 draft, Baker isn’t considered one of Washington’s top 30 prospects by either Baseball America or MLB Pipeline.  However, he has been red-hot at the plate in August, building his season-long slash line to .285/.348/.340 over 483 plate appearances with Triple-A Rochester.  While he doesn’t offer much power, Baker makes a lot of contact and is a threat on the basepaths, with 38 steals in 43 attempts this season.

Baker has primarily played second base and left field during his minor league career, but might not get a ton of action at either position since Luis Garcia Jr. and James Wood (both left-handed batters, like Baker) are established in everyday roles.  Baker has played a bit of center field so he could get some platoon work up the middle with Jacob Young, and he could join the DH mix with the likes of Juan Yepez, Andres Chaparro, and veteran Joey Gallo.

Baker will be making his MLB debut whenever he appears in a game, but the 25-year-old is no stranger to the big leagues.  The son of legendary manager Dusty Baker, Darren became known to fans when he was just three years old, and working as a batboy for the father’s Giants team during the 2002 World Series.  During Game 5, Baker was running towards home plate to pick up Kenny Lofton’s bat after a two-run triple, and might have been run over by baserunner David Bell if J.T. Snow hadn’t quickly grabbed the youngster out of harm’s way after Snow scored earlier on the play.

That incident led to the league instituting a rule that all batboys had to be at least 14 years old, and thus “the Darren Baker rule” has already ensured Baker some level of notoriety within baseball history.  Now, he can create a new name for himself by officially becoming a Major League player, and continuing the Baker family’s on-field legacy in the game.  (Current fans may know Dusty Baker best as a manager, but the elder Baker was a two-time All-Star and former NLCS MVP during an outstanding 19-year playing career.)

Nationals Designate Dominic Smith For Assignment

By | at

The Nationals announced Tuesday that they’ve designated first baseman Dominic Smith and right-hander Cory Abbott for assignment. Washington has also granted righty Andres Machado his release so that he can pursue an opportunity in Japan. That slate of moves clears space on the 40-man roster for lefties DJ Herz and Mitchell Parker as well as righties Cole Henry and Zach Brzykcy. That quartet of pitchers is now protected from next month’s Rule 5 Draft.

Smith, 28, was a first-round pick, longtime top prospect and (more briefly) a quality run producer for the division-rival Mets prior to being non-tendered in the 2022-23 offseason. From 2019-20, Smith treated the Mets to a stellar .299/.366/.571 batting line in 396 trips to the plate. He swatted 21 homers and connected on 31 doubles in that time before stumbling to a .643 OPS over his next two seasons and being cut loose. Smith’s lone year in D.C. brought about a rebound to some extent, as he turned in a .254/.326/.366 batting line with a dozen homers, but that wasn’t enough for the Nats to retain him and offer him a raise in arbitration.

Also 28 years old, Abbott has spent the past two seasons with the Nats. The former Cubs farmhand has logged 87 1/3 innings of 5.87 ERA ball in the Majors with Washington, fanning 21.3% of his opponents against an 11% walk rate. Abbott posted strong minor league numbers up through the Double-A level and once ranked as one of the Cubs’ more promising pitching prospects, but he’s now struggled in both Triple-A (5.46 ERA in parts of three seasons) and the big leagues. He’s out of minor league options as well, which could make it tough for another club to claim him.

Both Abbott and Smith will be traded or placed on waivers within the next week. Both can become free agents if they’re unclaimed.

As for Machado, he’ll start the next chapter of his career overseas — likely on a seven-figure guarantee that wouldn’t have been available to him in North American ball. He’s out of minor league options and not yet arbitration-eligible, so he was likely to lose his 40-man roster spot and spend next year trying to work his way back to the big leagues.

From 2021-22, Machado was a quietly solid member of the Washington bullpen, tallying 91 appearances and 95 innings of 3.41 ERA ball. He benefited from a .264 average on balls in play and had success in spite of pedestrian strikeout and walk rates of 18.3% and 9.9%, respectively.

Some degree of regression appeared in store, but perhaps not to the extent he saw in 2023 when he was torched for a 5.22 ERA in 50 innings despite marked improvements in his K-BB profile (20.8% strikeout rate, 6.3% walk rate). While Machado improved in terms of missing bats and limiting free passes (to say nothing of a 1 mph uptick in fastball velocity, to 96.7 mph on average), he also become staggeringly homer-prone; in 50 innings he served up 12 long balls — 2.34 homers per nine frames (and a home run on 24% of the fly-balls he yielded). He’ll take that plus velocity and improved command overseas, though it’s not yet clear precisely which team he’ll join.

All four of the prospects added to the Nationals’ 40-man roster today rank among their top 30 prospects at MLB.com. Herz is 22 years of age, while the others are all 24. Herz was the Cubs’ eighth-round pick in 2019 and came to the Nats by way of this summer’s Jeimer Candelario trade. He punched out nearly a third of his opponents while working as a starter in Double-A but also issued walks at almost a 14% clip. Injuries have plagued the career of Henry, a 2020 second-round pick with a potentially plus slider and plus-plus changeup. He pitched just 33 1/3 innings this past season. Similar to Herz, Parker is a lefty who missed bats in droves in the upper minors but did so with shaky command. Brzykcy is a bullpen prospect with a power fastball who missed the 2023 season due to Tommy John surgery.

Show all

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

hide arrows scroll to top