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Nationals Option Shinnosuke Ogasawara, DJ Herz

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The Nationals announced on Friday that they’ve optioned left-handers Shinnosuke Ogasawara and DJ Herz to Triple-A Rochester. Infielder Nasim Nunez and catcher Drew Millas were also sent down. As Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com writes, this essentially finalizes Mitchell Parker as the season-opening fifth starter.

Manager Dave Martinez said early in camp that MacKenzie Gore, Trevor Williams, Michael Soroka and Jake Irvin had rotation spots secure. The final job was up for grabs among Parker, Herz and Ogasawara. The former seemed to be the favorite going into camp, as he’d pitched to a 4.29 ERA in 29 starts as a rookie. Herz and Ogasawara probably had to pitch very well this spring to jump him on the depth chart.

That didn’t happen. Parker had the steadiest Spring Training performance. He allowed five runs with eight strikeouts and four walks across 12 1/3 innings. While that’s not exactly a dominant showing, Herz and Ogasawara both struggled. Herz gave up nine runs in 9 2/3 frames. He issued nine walks and only managed four strikeouts. Ogasawara was tagged for 19 runs (15 earned) over 12 innings. The Japanese southpaw recorded 10 strikeouts and walked eight.

Ogasawara signed a two-year, $3.5MM free agent deal over the winter. Unlike many NPB/KBO signees, he did not get a contractual clause that prohibits the team from sending him to the minors. He’ll begin his U.S. career in Triple-A after posting a 3.12 ERA with a modest 13.6% strikeout rate in his final NPB season. Herz made his big league debut last season. He struck out nearly 28% of opponents with a solid 4.16 ERA in 19 starts. He hasn’t consistently thrown strikes in the minors, though, and he clearly has not looked sharp this spring.

Nationals Return Rule 5 Pick Evan Reifert To Rays

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The Nationals have returned Rule 5 Draft pick Evan Reifert to the Rays, per announcements from both clubs. Washington’s 40-man roster is now at 39 players. The right-hander is back in the Rays organization and will not count against Tampa Bay’s 40-man roster. The fact that Reifert is being returned to the Rays indicates that he first cleared waivers after being made available to the league’s other 28 teams.

The 25-year-old Reifert (26 in May) signed with the Brewers as an undrafted free agent in 2020 and was traded to the Rays a bit more than a year later in exchange for infielder Mike Brosseau. He made his way to Double-A in 2024, pitching 41 1/3 innings of 1.96 ERA ball with an eye-popping 40.4% strikeout rate against a 9.9% walk rate. Despite the gaudy strikeout rate, Reifert was left unprotected last November and was the fifth player off the board in December’s Rule 5 Draft.

Last year’s 9.9% walk rate was higher than average but still far and away the best mark of Reifert’s career. He walked 14% of his opponents in 2021, 12.5% in 2022 and 37% in 2023 (in a tiny sample of 7 2/3 innings). Command has long been an issue, and that was again the case during spring training. Reifert issued a dozen walks and tossed three wild pitches in just 6 1/3 innings (39 batters faced).

Reifert has yet to pitch in Triple-A, but he’ll presumably do so this season. If the Rays can get his walk numbers back to even the 10-12% range, he has the potential to be an impactful big league reliever. The 6’4″ righty features a heater in the 94-97 range and an overpowering slider that MLB.com credits as a 70-grade pitch (on the 20-80 scale). FanGraphs touts that slider as a legitimate 80-grade offering … but couples it with 30-grade command.

The Nationals’ Fifth Starter Competition

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The Nationals continue to evaluate candidates for the final spot in their rotation. Manager Dave Martinez confirmed to reporters (including Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com) that four pitchers will be in the Opening Day rotation if healthy: MacKenzie Gore, Michael Soroka, Jake Irvin and Trevor Williams. The Nats haven’t revealed in what order those pitchers will take the ball, but the more meaningful development is that there’s only one rotation spot up for grabs.

There appear to be three candidates for that job. Mitchell Parker and DJ Herz are coming off solid rookie seasons. The Nats added former NPB southpaw Shinnosuke Ogasawara on an affordable two-year, $3.5MM free agent deal. All three are left-handers who are in their mid-20s and aiming to break camp for the first time in their MLB careers.

Parker is the most experienced of the bunch. Washington called up the 6’4″ southpaw in the middle of April. He stuck in the rotation for the remainder of the season. Parker made 29 starts and worked to a 4.29 earned run average through 151 innings. He posted a slightly below-average 20.6% strikeout rate against a solid 6.7% walk percentage. Parker doesn’t have huge stuff but looks the part of a solid back-end command artist.

Herz has the opposite profile. He missed bats on nearly 13% of his offerings. Herz posted a 27.7% strikeout rate, continuing a trend of plus swing-and-miss numbers he showed throughout his minor league career. His minor league walk numbers wouldn’t point to a long-term future in the rotation, but he showed surprisingly reasonable control (9.4% walk rate) over his first 19 MLB starts. He turned in a 4.16 ERA through 88 2/3 frames.

Ogasawara’s profile is closer to Parker’s. He allowed 3.62 earned runs per nine over his nine seasons in Japan. Ogasawara worked to a 3.12 ERA across 144 1/3 frames for Chunichi Dragons last season. He had a well below-average 13.6% strikeout rate that explains his modest deal. He walked fewer than 4% of batters faced, so he’s a good strike-thrower, but it’s not clear whether his stuff will play against big league competition.

No one from this trio has had an especially impressive camp. Parker’s results have been the best. He has allowed four runs through 7 1/3 innings, striking out seven without issuing a walk. Ogasawara has surrendered 11 runs (seven earned) with five walks and six strikeouts over 9 1/3 frames. Herz has allowed eight runs (six earned) with seven free passes and only three punchouts through 6 2/3 innings. While it’s not worth reading much into a handful of Spring Training appearances, Parker’s greater experience seemed to give him a leg up on the job entering camp. If that were the case, it’s hard to argue that Herz and Ogasawara have shown enough to overtake him to this point.

Nationals’ Erick Mejia Converting To Pitching

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Erick Mejia is starting a new chapter in his 13-year career, as the longtime infielder is working out as a pitcher in the Nationals’ spring camp.  The Washington Post’s Andrew Golden writes that Mejia’s latest step was a 25-pitch live batting practice session against minor league hitters, and none of Mejia’s pitches were put into play.

Mejia’s MLB resume consists of 17 games with the Royals over the 2019-20 seasons.  The rest of his lengthy career has been spent in the farm systems of Mariners, Dodgers, Royals, and Nationals, and Mejia has hit .264/.333/.387 over 3998 career plate appearances in the minors.

Washington signed Mejia to a minor league deal in December 2022, and his two seasons in the Nats’ system didn’t lead to another trip back to the Show.  He did toss an inning of mop-up work in a blowout of Triple-A game last season, which led to a follow-up bullpen session that saw Mejia throw off a mound (while wearing sneakers) and hit 96mph on the radar gun.  This got the attention of Nationals coaches and officials, and Mejia agreed last September to try giving pitching a proper try as a new career path.

Golden notes that Mejia has a ton of vertical break on his four-seam fastball, and that pitch has also hit the 98mph threshold in subsequent throwing sessions.  “The number one thing he has is the ability to throw the ball very good and to throw it over the plate.  The other stuff, we can work on it,” Triple-A Rochester pitching coach Rafael Chaves said, describing how Mejia is understandably still raw at the normal mechanics and routine processes that come with pitching.

It remains to be seen if this transition will remain just an experiment, or if Mejia can get into minor league games and try to prove himself as a pitcher.  Now 30 years old, Mejia put the situation plainly, saying “if I need to try something different to keep going, I will do it.”  There’s no downside for the veteran to see if he can translate his arm strength and natural velocity into a pitching career, and it makes Mejia an interesting subplot of the Nationals’ camp.

Offseason In Review: Washington Nationals

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The Nationals made a few acquisitions, most notably with a trade for their new first baseman. They eschewed any investments longer than two years. They're probably still a season away from pulling out of the rebuild. If they take a step forward from last season's 71 wins, they should be positioned for a much more aggressive winter going into 2026.

Major League Signings

2025 spending: $38.5MM ($4MM deferred)
Total spending: $47.5MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • None

Notable Losses

The Nationals finished 71-91 last season, their second straight year landing 20 games under .500. Still, they feel closer to contention than they did 12 months ago. Top outfield prospects James Wood and Dylan Crews made it to the big leagues. The middle infield tandem of CJ Abrams and Luis García Jr. each took steps forward, even if Abrams' season ended with an unceremonious disciplinary demotion. Center fielder Jacob Young had a nice season headlined by Gold Glove-caliber defense. A controllable rotation group of MacKenzie Gore, Jake Irvin, Mitchell Parker and DJ Herz pitched reasonably well.

One can start to see the light at the end of the five-year rebuild. Yet the Nationals entered the offseason with a handful of huge holes. GM Mike Rizzo said in September that the front office was looking to add one or two middle-of-the-order bats. The Nats got very little from their corner infield or designated hitter positions, making those obvious target areas. They're still lacking a true top-of-the-rotation starter, nor did they have much in the way of middle relief depth.

They didn't fix all of it. There was never much hope of ownership allowing the front office to jump back in on Juan Soto. They seemingly didn't look at the top of the rotation market, uninterested in making a $200MM+ investment for Corbin Burnes or Max Fried. While they technically did add two middle-of-the-order hitters, they weren't on significant free agent splashes. The Nationals showed some interest in Christian Walker and made sense as an on-paper fit for Pete Alonso, but they ended up taking a volume approach to free agency.

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MLBTR Podcast: Jose Quintana, Luis Gil’s Injury, The Nats’ TV Situation, Salary Floor Talk, And More!

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • With MASN now solved and stadium naming rights and jersey patches on the way do you see the Nationals making the leap into big spenders sooner than later? (12:30)
  • Do you see the MLBPA pushing for a salary floor? (22:05)
  • Will the White Sox trade Luis Robert Jr. before the start of the regular season? (25:20)
  • While neither is particularly likely, is it more probable that the Pirates extend Paul Skenes or the Reds extend Elly De La Cruz? (27:40)
  • What is your opinion of the White Sox upper management and will they lose 100 games this year? (30:45)
  • The Mets are loaded with infield prospects. Do they trade Jeff McNeil to make room? (37:30)
  • With the Tigers’ outfield injuries, do they go get a right-handed bat? And who is available? (42:00)
  • With the Mariners bringing back most of their position players, what are the chances they get better production from them in 2025? (44:30)
  • Does David Bote have a legitimate shot to make the Dodgers’ roster? (50:35)
  • Why doesn’t MLB expand to 36 teams instead of just 32? (51:35)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Nationals Outright Stone Garrett

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The Nationals announced that outfielder Stone Garrett has cleared outright waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Rochester. He had been designated for assignment last week. He’ll remain with the Nats but will no longer take up a spot on the 40-man roster.

Garrett, 29, has shown some flashes of offensive potential in his career. That made him a somewhat surprising DFA recipient when the Nats officially re-signed Kyle Finnegan last week and many fans expected him to be quickly snatched up by some other club. However, there are also some downsides in his profile that make it understandable why teams balked at grabbing him off waivers.

It is true that Garrett has a career batting line of .276/.341/.492 in the big leagues, which translates to a 125 wRC+. However, that came in a somewhat small sample size of 361 plate appearances spread across three separate seasons. His .369 batting average on balls in play is heavily to the lucky side, with typical league average usually being in the .290-.300 range. He also struck out in 30.2% of those plate appearances.

His minor league production has been more modest. Over the past four years, he has a .271/.331/.488 slash line and 107 wRC+ on the farm. His 7.5% walk rate and 26.2% strikeout rate in that sample are both subpar numbers.

Major league clubs likely considered his big league production to be at least partly a mirage and unlikely to be sustained. That was likely true before a significant injury and lackluster return. In August of 2023, Garrett suffered a scary injury when he leaped in attempt to catch a DJ LeMahieu home run at Yankee Stadium. In colliding with the wall, he hurt his leg and needed to be carted off the field. It was later announced that he had a fractured left fibula. Garrett was back on the field in 2024 but hit just .247/.338/.336 for a WRC+ of 82 in his 71 Triple-A games.

Put together, Garrett was likely viewed as a decent hitter but one whose results outpaced his actual talents. Factor in the notable leg injury and tepid numbers in his return last year, and his stock was a bit down. That nudged him off Washington’s roster and none of the other 29 clubs were willing to give him a spot.

Since he has less than three years of service time and doesn’t have a previous career outright, he doesn’t have the right to elect free agency. The Nats will go into the season with a projected outfield of James Wood, Dylan Crews and Jacob Young in starting roles, with Alex Call likely on the bench. Robert Hassell III is also on the 40-man while Franchy Cordero is an experienced major leaguer who is in the system on a minor league deal. If Garrett is added back to the roster at any point, he still has options remaining.

Orioles, Nationals Announce Resolution Of MASN Dispute

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The Orioles and Nationals announced Monday morning that their yearslong dispute regarding television rights fees from the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) has reached a final resolution.

Per this morning’s press release, MASN and the Nationals have come to terms on a one-year agreement for the team’s 2025 television broadcasts. The Nats are free to explore alternative broadcast opportunities for the 2026 season and beyond. Further, this morning’s announcement plainly lays out that “all disputes related to past media rights between the Nationals, Orioles, and MASN have been resolved, and all litigation will be dismissed.”

The dispute between the two franchises spans nearly two decades, dating back to the network’s establishment in 2005. While MASN is technically co-owned by the Orioles and Nationals, the Baltimore franchise has had the controlling stake in the network since the network was established in 2005.

As part of the then-Expos’ relocation to Washington D.C., the franchise agreed to tie its television rights to the newly created MASN, with the Orioles controlling the majority stake of the network. That split was gradually set to become more balanced over the years, with the O’s currently holding about a three-to-one stake in the network. The arrangement was brokered as compensation for the Expos/Nationals franchise moving into the Orioles’ geographic territory. The two parties have never seen eye to eye on how rights fees should be divided, leading to multiple rounds of litigation over the past decade-plus. Under the relocation agreement, the Nationals have been barred from selling their broadcast rights to another regional network. That’s no longer the case.

That ugly legal battle and the fiscal uncertainty inherently tied to negotiations loomed large over the sale process for both the Nationals and the Orioles. The Angelos family eventually came to terms on a $1.725 billion sale of the Orioles to a group led by Baltimore native and billionaire David Rubenstein anyhow. The Lerner family, who own the Nationals, explored a sale of the team for more than a year but never came to terms with a potential buyer. Uncertainty regarding the team’s broadcast future was reportedly an impediment in the Lerner family’s sale efforts — understandably so.

The MASN saga has been a constant subplot for both franchises for the better part of two decades. There have been legal battles throughout. The first seven years saw the Nats’ television rights locked in at a fixed rate that they’ve since called heavily favorable to the Orioles. Subsequent rights fees were to be brokered between the two parties in five-year periods. None has proceeded smoothly.

The 2012-16  period was still wrapped up in litigation as recently as 2023. An arbitration panel ruled in favor of the Nationals as they sought unpaid rights fees for those seasons, but various waves of negotiations and an eventual elevation of the case to the New York Court of Appeals continually delayed the process. The two teams also went to court over rights distributions for the 2017-21 seasons. As of this January, the Nats had filed a motion with the Supreme Court of New York asking that the court confirm a ruling from MLB’s Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee that the Orioles owed an additional $320MM in fees for the 2022-26 seasons. In essence, the two teams have been in a standstill over the exact amount of television rights to be paid out for more than a decade.

Today’s announcement serves as a watershed moment for both organizations, as messy and near-interminable legal proceedings will no longer be required to continue in perpetuity. Both will have more direct control over their payroll and more understanding of their long-term financial security. Arguments as to whether the MASN arrangement was “fair” to either party or as to which side ultimately came away in the more favorable position will persist among onlookers — particularly as further details surrounding this resolution come to light — but the end result will be greater autonomy over broadcast revenues for both parties moving forward.

Nationals Pursuing Stadium Naming Rights Deal

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In January, the Nationals began processes to sell the naming rights to their stadium and find a sponsor for jersey patches, reports Brett Night of Forbes. Chief revenue officer Mike Carney told Night that the team is hopeful to announce those partnerships midseason.

Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post wrote last August about the Nats’ desire to reach those agreements. She noted at the time that the Nationals were the only team that had neither a stadium rights deal nor jersey sponsorships.

The change is only really relevant to fans in the sense that it could impact the team’s spending habits. Forbes estimates that the deals — which will be negotiated separately, likely with different sponsors — could come with upwards of $20MM in additional revenues annually. Carney loosely alluded to that possibly having an effect on payroll. “We want to be that brand that is a consistent winner year in and year out, and this is going to help to do that,” he told Night.

The Nats have never had a ballpark naming rights agreement. The venue has been known as Nationals Park since its opening in 2008. The Nationals are one of eight teams that doesn’t have a corporate sponsor for its stadium. The Dodgers, Angels, Red Sox, Cubs, Yankees, Orioles and Royals are the others. That doesn’t include the A’s (Sutter Health Park) and Rays (George M. Steinbrenner Field), who are in temporary homes for at least the upcoming season.

While the process has been ongoing since January, the Forbes report comes the same day as the Nationals finally settled their longstanding battle with the Orioles over the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. The Washington organization can pursue its own in-market broadcasting opportunities after the 2025 season. That should position them to lock in a more reliable television revenue stream for ’26 and beyond.

The Nationals pushed their competitive balance tax payrolls into the $200MM range each season between 2017-19, according to the Cot’s Baseball Contracts estimates. They’ve dramatically cut spending since winning the World Series six years ago. That coincided with an unsuccessful attempt by the Lerner family to sell the franchise in 2022-23. It has overlapped with a five-year rebuild that saw the team trade Juan Soto, Trea Turner and Max Scherzer in blockbusters to restock the farm system. Between the returns in those trades and the selection of Dylan Crews with the second overall pick in 2023, the Nats have built an encouraging core.

It doesn’t seem they feel that relatively young group is quite ready to take the next step. They shied away from anything more than affordable two-year commitments this offseason. Their estimated $137MM luxury tax payroll (via RosterResource) isn’t meaningfully different from last year’s $140.6MM year-end mark. Owner Mark Lerner justified the relatively quiet winter by opining that the team was probably still a season away from being a true contender.

“When (GM Mike Rizzo) calls me in and says, ‘We really need to think about it,’ for next winter, we’ll talk about it,” Lerner said last month. “Right now, he doesn’t think — and I agree with him: There’s no point in getting a superstar and paying him hundreds of millions of dollars to win two or three more games. You’ve got to wait until — like Jayson [Werth]. Jayson was right on the cusp of [the team] being really good, and it took us to the next level. That’s the ideal situation.“

Nationals Re-Sign Kyle Finnegan

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March 3: Finnegan’s $6MM salary has $4MM of deferrals, per Jon Heyman of The New York Post. This seems to drop the net present value to $5.7MM.

February 27: The Nats made it official today, signing Finnegan with Stone Garrett designated for assignment as the corresponding move.

February 25: The Nationals are bringing back Kyle Finnegan, with Robert Murray of FanSided reporting that the two sides have agreed to a one-year contract. The Warner Sports Management client gets a $6MM guarantee, per Jesse Rogers of ESPN. The Nats have a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move to make this official.

Finnegan, 33, spent the past five years with the Nats. He made 291 appearances for the club in that time, allowing 3.56 earned runs per nine innings. He struck out 23.5% of batters faced, gave out walks at a 9.5% clip and got grounders on 47.5% of balls in play. He also took over the closer’s job in that time. He earned 11 saves in both 2021 and 2022, then got that number to 28 in 2023 and 38 last year.

The Nats could have retained Finnegan for 2025 via arbitration, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting him for a salary of $8.6MM, a bump from the $5.1MM he made in 2024. They somewhat surprisingly decided to walk away instead, non-tendering him back in November.

Though that move initially raised some eyebrows, there were some concerning numbers under the hood. His ERA has held fairly steady recently but his strikeout rate has been ticking down. He struck out 26.1% of batters faced in 2022, but that number fell to the 22% range in each of the past two seasons. His 2024 campaign was also fairly lopsided. He had a 2.45 ERA and 26.1% strikeout rate in the first half but a 5.79 ERA and 16.4% strikeout rate in the second.

He has also been susceptible to some loud contact in his career, especially lately. His 91.3 mile per hour exit velocity last year was considered by Statcast to be in the first percentile of qualified pitchers. His 48.1% hard hit rate was in the second percentile. In 2023, he allowed a 92.2 mph average exit velo (first percentile) and 47.5% hard hit rate (fourth percentile).

In hindsight, the decision not to tender him a contract looks like a wise one for the Nats. Though the righty received interest from some other clubs this winter, the Nats stayed in contact with Finnegan and were able to bring him back while saving a few million bucks relative to his projected price range.

The Nats have been rebuilding for the past few years and their offseason has mostly been about adding solid short-term veterans to their young core. Those vets can stabilize the roster and will ideally turn themselves into deadline trade chips if Washington isn’t contending in July.

In the bullpen, they have signed Jorge López and Lucas Sims to one-year deals, with Finnegan now joining them in that category. Derek Law is back for his final season of club control, retained via arbitration. Colin Poche is in camp as a non-roster invitee and is just about two months shy of six years of big league service time. If he’s added to the roster, the Nats would have five experienced bullpen arms slated for free agency after the season, making them logical summer trade candidates.

In the interim, there will be opportunities for younger arms to pitch around those guys. Jose A. Ferrer has just 66 big league innings but has posted huge ground ball rates in that time. Rule 5 pick Evan Reifert has to hold a spot or else be offered back to the Rays. Perhaps one of the club’s many starting candidates will end up in the bullpen as a long reliever. Eduardo Salazar, Zach Brzykcy and Orlando Ribalta are also on the 40-man but each has less than a year of big league service and can be optioned to the minors.

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