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Report: Nationals Considering LeMahieu, Bryant

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The Nationals are exploring their options on the infield market, as MLB Network’s Jon Paul Morosi reports (Twitter links) that Washington has interest in free agent second baseman DJ LeMahieu and Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant.  While it can be assumed that the Nats are looking at both big names and smaller names, the fact that they’re open to adding higher-salaried players such as LeMahieu and Bryant gives us some hints about the team’s spending capability this offseason.

LeMahieu would be the more expensive of the two, of course, as he is projected to land a lucrative multi-year deal in free agency (MLBTR has him projected for four years and $68MM).  The Nats would also have to give up a second-round draft pick and $500K in international bonus pool money to sign LeMahieu, since he rejected the Yankees’ qualifying offer.

This all being said, the Nationals haven’t shied away from making big additions in free agency in the past, and Morosi notes that the Nats also had interest in LeMahieu the last time he was a free agent back in the 2018-19 offseason.  (Washington instead signed Brian Dozier to a one-year, $9MM deal to handle second base, a deal the Nats probably don’t regret considering they won the 2019 World Series.)  Though players like Juan Soto and Trea Turner will continue to get expensive through arbitration, the Nationals have quite a bit of money coming off the books after 2021, so LeMahieu wouldn’t put much of an extra burden on the payroll.

Bryant would be a shorter-term add, since he is only under contract through the 2021 season before hitting free agency himself.  MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects Bryant to earn $18.6MM in his final year of arbitration, so while the former NL MVP isn’t inexpensive, some of that salary could be covered by whatever the Nationals would send back to the Cubs in a trade.  For what it’s worth, Bryant is represented by Scott Boras, whose solid working relationship with the Lerner family is well-documented; on the current Nationals roster alone, Soto, Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and Seth Romero are all Boras clients.

Chicago is reportedly open to moving just about any of its higher-priced veterans, though Bryant is something of a tricky trade candidate considering he hit only .206/.293/.351 in 147 plate appearances during an injury-plagued 2020 season.  That down year will surely factor into what the Nationals or any other team would be willing to give up in a trade, yet the Cubs obviously also don’t want to sell low on a former All-Star (unless forced into such a move due to payroll constraints).  Signing LeMahieu is more expensive but also carries fewer question marks, plus Washington wouldn’t have to give up any young talent in a trade to land LeMahieu.

Looking at the Nats’ roster, either LeMahieu or Bryant would help an infield that is pretty unsettled beyond Turner at shortstop.  First base is wide open, Starlin Castro will play every day at either second base or third base, Carter Kieboom will look to break out after a tough rookie season, plus Luis Garcia and the re-signed Josh Harrison provide depth.  LeMahieu would slot right into an everyday role, probably at second base, but Washington could move him around to see action at both first and third base depending on situations or how players like Kieboom or Garcia develop.  Bryant has some similar versatility, as he would likely play mostly at third base, but could also be shifted to first base or a corner outfield spot.

Nationals Select Yasel Antuna, Joan Adon

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The Nationals announced Friday that they’ve selected the contracts of infielder Yasel Antuna and right-hander Joan Adon. Both are now on the 40-man roster and shielded from selection in next month’s Rule 5 Draft.

Antuna and Adon rank 12th and 16th among Nats farmhands at MLB.com at the moment, though Baseball America placed Antuna as high as fourth in the system. FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen ranked the 21-year-old Antuna 13th among Nats farmhands, noting that Tommy John surgery derailed his 2019 season. It’d have been aggressive for any club to select Antuna in next month’s draft, given that he’s only played 87 games above Rookie ball, but the Nats clearly feel that the switch-hitter has the potential to grow into power and emerge as a coveted prospect. Antuna spent the season in the Nats’ player pool, so they got a look at him over the course of the summer.

Adon, 22, spent the 2019 season in the Nationals’ Class-A rotation and worked to a 3.86 ERA with 7.7 K/9, 3.8 BB/9 and a 45 percent ground-ball rate. He runs his heater up to 96 mph and repeats his delivery well, per MLB.com’s report on him, but he still has some work to do on his secondary offerings. Like Antuna, he was in the Nats’ player pool this summer, and the organization clearly liked what it saw from him there.

Rochester Red Wings To Become Nationals’ Triple-A Affiliate

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The Nationals will have a new Triple-A affiliate in 2021, as they’ve reached an agreement with the Rochester Red Wings, Justin Murphy and Sean Lahman of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle report. The move to partner with the Nationals will end an 18-year affiliation between the Red Wings and the Twins. The length of the new player development contract between the Nats and Red Wings hasn’t been announced, although such agreements are generally for two years or for four years.

The appeal for the Nationals in this deal is quite apparent. The Nats just wrapped up a two-year PDC with the Fresno Grizzlies after an awkward game of musical chairs between several teams and the few available Triple-A affiliates two years ago left them as the last two potential partners standing. Fresno is nearly 2800 miles and more than a six-hour flight from Nationals Park. It was never an ideal fit. Rochester is a mere 382 miles, with a flight to D.C. checking in at about 90 minutes.

Shuttling players between Triple-A and the big leagues will be vastly easier for the Nats in 2021 and beyond. They’ll also surely be pleased to move their young pitchers from the hitters’ paradise that is the Pacific Coast League to a friendlier setting in the International League.

As for the Twins, they’re now without a Triple-A affiliate, although they’ve long been reported to be working on an affiliation deal with the St. Paul Saints. While the Saints have been an independent team since their inception in 1993 — first in the Northern League and, since 2005, in the American Association — the Twins’ hope is that they can work out a deal to move their Triple-A club just miles from their current home park. Target Field and the Saints’ CHS Field are separated by all of 11 miles.

La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported recently that the Twins and Saints are continuing to progress toward a deal and may even have the framework of an agreement in place. Triple-A stadiums are required to have a capacity of at least 10,000, but Neal writes that said requirement would be waived for the recently constructed CHS Field, which opened in 2015 and has a 7210-person capacity. The Saints would need to pay a significant sum to Minor League Baseball — $20MM — in order to be granted affiliation, which is the biggest remaining hurdle in the agreement.

Nationals Sign Sam Clay To Major League Contract

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The Nationals announced Wednesday that they’ve signed 27-year-old lefty Sam Clay to a Major League contract. The 2014 fourth-rounder has spent his entire career prior to this point in the Twins organization but has yet to appear in the Majors. Clay’s contract comes with a $575K guarantee, tweets Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. Clay is represented by the Ballengee Group.

While Major League deals for minor league free agents who have yet to make their Major League debut are admittedly rare, there’s a handful of them every winter. The Nationals, in fact, fared well in exactly that type of signing just one year ago when they inked longtime Athletics farmhand Kyle Finnegan to a Major League deal. He went on to toss 24 2/3 frames of 2.92 ERA ball out of the Washington ’pen in 2020. They’ll hope for similar success with Clay in 2021.

Because of the lack of a minor league season in 2020, Clay has just 22 2/3 innings of work at the Triple-A level under his belt. He’s pitched to a 4.37 ERA in that time but logged a much more impressive 26-to-10 K/BB ratio and a 60.6 percent ground-ball rate. Clay’s sinker has consistently generated ground-ball rates north of 55 percent, including a ridiculous 77 percent mark through 46 2/3 frames at the Double-A level in 2019.

Past scouting reports on the 6’2″, 190-pound lefty have also touted an above-average curveball, and it should be noted that because of his extreme ground-ball capabilities, he’s surrendered just six home runs in 405 1/3 minor league innings. To further emphasize the eye-popping nature of that stat, consider that Clay has faced 1814 batters in that time.

Clay was never selected to the Twins’ 40-man roster at any point in his career to date, which also means he’s never been optioned to Triple-A. As such — much like Finnegan — he still has three minor league option years remaining, so he doesn’t need to crack a spot on the Nationals’ Opening Day roster by any means. He’ll give the Nats some much-needed lefty depth in their bullpen mix, where Ben Braymer had previously stood as the only southpaw bullpen piece on the team’s 40-man roster.

Nationals Came Close To Acquiring Alex Wood At 2019 Trade Deadline

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Alex Wood was a target for the Nationals at the 2019 trade deadline, as Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post reports that the Nats “nearly acquired” the southpaw, who was then a member of the Reds.  The timing is interesting, as back injuries prevented Wood from making his 2019 debut until July 28, just three days prior to the deadline.  While Wood ended up making seven starts for Cincinnati that season, it’s fair to assume that the Nationals may been considering him as a reliever (or a swingman) given the dire state of Washington’s bullpen at the time.

Needless to say, the Nats don’t regret how things turned out for them at the 2019 deadline, as July 31 acquisition Daniel Hudson played a critical role in Washington capturing the World Series.  But with Wood now a free agent and the Nationals looking for some veteran pitching depth, GM Mike Rizzo could very well revisit the idea of adding the left-hander to the D.C. roster.  Wood was again hampered by injuries in 2020, tossing only 12 2/3 innings for the Dodgers during the regular season and posting a 6.39 ERA.  However, his campaign ended on the high note of a World Series ring and a 1.35 ERA (one run in 6 2/3 relief innings) in four postseason outings.

Nats Unlikely To Be "Big Spenders Or Big Savers" This Offseason

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  • The Nationals seem likely to take a “middle of the pack” approach to spending this winter, The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli opines, operating as neither “big spenders or big savers” in the wake of revenue losses from the 2020 season.  Washington has over $161MM in projected payroll for the 2021 campaign, and though a lot of that is scheduled to come off the books next winter (most notably Max Scherzer’s salary), one would imagine the Nats might want to earmark some of those savings for possible extensions for Trea Turner and Juan Soto.  Ghiroli feels the Nationals will be active in free agency to some degree but doesn’t expect any splashy signings.

Nationals To Re-Sign Aaron Barrett

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The Nationals have re-signed righty Aaron Barrett to a minor league contract and invited him to Major League Spring Training, Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic reports (Twitter thread). The club has also re-signed infielders Adrian Sanchez and Brandon Snyder to minor league deals with camp invites.

Of the three, only Barrett logged time at the Major League level for the Nats in 2020. The 32-year-old righty (33 in January) looked to be emerging as a mainstay in the D.C. bullpen from 2014-15 before a torn UCL required Tommy John surgery. He fractured his elbow near the completion of that rehab stint, further derailing his return.

The Nats captured Double-A skipper Matthew LeCroy informing Barrett of his return to the Majors on video in 2019. That, coupled with Barrett becoming overwhelmed with emotion following his first big league appearance after close to a half decade of rehab, served as one of many feel-good stories in a magical campaign for the Nats.

Barrett has pitched just four innings in the Majors since that 2019 return, and he’ll now look for another opportunity to carve out a larger role in the Nationals’ relief corps. He’s been tagged for six runs in those four innings, but Barrett carried a 3.47 ERA with 10.8 K/9 against 3.5 BB/9 in 70 frames prior to running into his injury troubles.

Turning to the 30-year-old Sanchez, he spent parts of the 2017-19 seasons with the Nats, serving primarily as a utility infield piece. He’s appeared in a total of 90 big league games, all with the Nats, and posted a .263/.280/.331 batting line in 166 trips to the plate.

Snyder, 34 in a few weeks, spent the 2019 season with the Nationals’ Triple-A affiliate and returned on another minor league deal last winter. He hasn’t gotten to the Majors with the Nats and has only appeared in two MLB games since the conclusion of the 2016 season. A former first-round pick, Snyder has seen MLB action in parts of six seasons, during which time he’s batted .240/.276/.455 with nine homers, five doubles and a triple in 211 plate appearances. The corner infielder/outfielder belted 31 home runs for the Nats’ Triple-A club during that 2019 stint and has a career .773 OPS in parts of 10 seasons at that level.

Starting Pitching Notes: Kluber, Nats, Orioles

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Agent B.B. Abbott tells MLB.com’s Jon Morosi that right-hander Corey Kluber has been cleared to begin a throwing program and is expected to progress to throwing off a mound early next month (Twitter link). That timeline provides a glimpse into where Kluber is at in his rehab from the Grade 2 teres major strain that limited him to just one inning with the Rangers this past season. It stands to reason that interested clubs may prefer to see how Kluber handles that next critical step before committing a guaranteed contract to him. A broken forearm and a strained oblique muscle held Kluber to 35 2/3 innings in 2019, so he’s tossed just 36 2/3 frames over the past two seasons. However, in his last full season, the 34-year-old Kluber finished third in AL Cy Young voting.

Some notes on the market for starting pitching…

  • The Orioles are still in the midst of a long rebuild, but GM Mike Elias told reporters this week that he plans to look at the free-agent market for rotation options (link via Rich Dubroff of BaltimoreBaseball.com). “I definitely think we’re going to be signing some starting pitchers,” Elias said. “You can never have enough.” Elias downplayed the magnitude of any potential signing, cautioning that any such moves could be on major league or minor league deals. Baltimore went the latter route last winter when inking Tommy Milone and Wade LeBlanc to soak up some innings, but that duo is gone — as is righty Asher Wojciechowski. The Orioles already have some young arms knocking on the door to potential rotation spots, headlined by left-hander Keegan Akin, but there’s so much uncertainty on the staff that it wouldn’t be a surprise to see multiple arms brought into the fold. “There will be additional competition in camp,” said Elias.
  • While many clubs are content to stay in-house to round out the back of their rotations, the Nationals’ history suggests that they’ll spend to add a No. 4 starter behind Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin, writes Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com. That fourth spot in the rotation was held down by Anibal Sanchez in 2019-20 but now looks vacant once again after Sanchez’s 2021 option was unsurprisingly declined. While the Nats might not break the bank  to bring in a veteran, there’s a rather robust market for fourth and fifth starter types, including a host of high-profile names seeking bouncebacks from poor 2020 showings. Zuckerman notes that southpaw Robbie Ray, one such starter, was initially a Nationals draft pick and a prospect that GM Mike Rizzo had a difficult time trading in the Doug Fister swap with the Tigers back in 2013. As seen on MLBTR’s Top 50 Free Agent list, Ray is one of many options for clubs seeking rotation help.

Nationals Looking For Bat To Protect Soto

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The Washington Nationals are facing a host of changes after missing the playoffs in their title-defense campaign. They laid off a number of front office employees, including scouts and minor league coaches, while 15 players from their 40-man roster are now free agents, writes Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. The goal for the Nats remains as ever, building for the playoffs with a veteran-laden roster to support their young stars.

  • Dougherty notes a particular need for another heavy hitter in the middle of the order to help protect all-world outfielder Juan Soto. When World Series hero (and current free agent) Howie Kendrick went down with injury, the Nats didn’t have another bat capable of protecting Soto. An outfield corner spot seems the most likely place to find such a hitter, though they have a hole at first base as well, depending on the status of Mr. Nat  Ryan Zimmerman, who opted out in 2020. The rest of the infield is relatively set with Trea Turner manning shortstop, Carter Kieboom and Luis Garcia looking to establish themselves at third and second, and the duo of Starlin Castro and Josh Harrison providing the safety nets for those positions.

Nationals Select Brandon Fuentes

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  • The Nationals announced they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Steven Fuentes. The 23-year-old pitched to a 2.69 ERA/2.24 FIP in 63.2 Double-A innings in 2019 and would’ve been eligible for the Rule 5 draft this winter. Baseball America ranks Fuentes the #27 prospect in the Washington system.
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