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Nationals Interested In Kelvin Herrera

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Barring a turnaround over the next couple months, the 7-15 Royals will be prime candidates to sell several veterans prior to the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. One of those players could be closer Kelvin Herrera, who’s already drawing the Nationals’ interest, reports FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal (video link).

The Nationals were connected to multiple high-profile closers in the offseason, including Kenley Jansen in free agency and David Robertson via the trade route, but elected to begin the year with in-house options. That hasn’t gone swimmingly thus far for Washington, which has seen Opening Day closer Blake Treinen, current closer Shawn Kelley and fellow late-game option Koda Glover post disappointing results. The best of three has been Glover, but the hard-throwing rookie landed on the disabled list with a hip impingement earlier this week after allowing four earned runs on seven hits and a walk, with six strikeouts, in 8 2/3 innings. Meanwhile, in 19 combined frames, Treinen and Kelley have yielded 16 earned runs on 10 walks and 25 hits, with 21 strikeouts, and have blown two of eight save chances. What’s more, given Kelley’s history as a two-time Tommy John surgery recipient, the Nats are wary of using the 33-year-old on consecutive days, having done so just once this season.

At 16-8, Washington doesn’t look like a team with many weaknesses (though center fielder Adam Eaton’s knee injury is troubling), but its bullpen has been a glaring issue in April. The unit’s 6.08 ERA and 5.09 FIP rank toward the bottom of the majors, so it would behoove the Nationals to bolster their relief corps if its performance doesn’t improve in the coming months. Herrera would theoretically help the Nats do that, as he has typically been a premier reliever since debuting in 2012.

In eight innings this season, the 27-year-old Herrera has only allowed two earned runs on three hits and a walk, albeit with just five strikeouts. His velocity is at its usual level, though, and both his hard-throwing ways and history of positive results mean he should bring back a quality return for the Royals in a trade. Rosenthal contends that the Nationals have enough well-regarded position player prospects to swing a deal for Herrera, who’s controllable via arbitration through next season, citing three outfielders – the newly promoted Rafael Bautista, Juan Soto and Andrew Stevenson – as potential trade chips. Both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline place the 18-year-old Soto and Stevenson, 22, among the Nats’ five best prospects.

Nationals Place Adam Eaton On 10-Day DL

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SATURDAY 9:13am: The Nationals have announced that they’ve placed Eaton on the DL and promoted Bautista, as anticipated. Eaton’s injury has officially been listed as a left knee strain.

8:21am: The Nats will promote outfielder Rafael Bautista to the big leagues, MASN’s Byron Kerr writes. That news would seem to indicate Eaton is headed to the DL. The 24-year-old Bautista is batting a modest .291/.325/.354 in 83 plate appearances with Triple-A Syracuse, a line roughly in keeping with the offensive skill set he’s demonstrated throughout his minor-league career — he hits well for contact and posts reasonable on-base percentages but lacks power. Bautista swiped 56 bases for Double-A Harrisburg in 2016 while only being caught ten times, indicating outstanding speed, and Kerr notes that his range is very good. MLB.com ranks Bautista 13th among Nationals prospects.

FRIDAY 9:47pm: Skipper Dusty Baker was only able to say that the club will know more after Eaton undergoes an MRI tomorrow, as Dan Kolko of MASNsports.com tweets.

9:38pm: Nationals center fielder Adam Eaton was removed from tonight’s game after suffering an apparent lower-leg injury suffered while crossing first base. There are no details yet from the club, of course, but Eaton had to be helped off without placing any weight on his left leg.

The image of Eaton grimacing in pain while being removed from the field is just about the last thing the Nationals hoped to see this evening. The 28-year-old has functioned as a key cog in a productive Nats lineup since coming over in a somewhat controversial winter trade.

Over his 102 trips to plate entering tonight’s action, Eaton carried a .291/.392/.465 batting line with a pair of long balls and three stolen bases. Though defensive metrics haven’t loved his work in center field, the jury is still out given the meager sample to date.

We’ll need to wait for further word, clearly, before leaping to any conclusions. But given the degree of pain clearly being experienced by the gritty Eaton, and the fact he wasn’t able to bear any weight on his leg, it seems at a minimum that the organization will need to expect some kind of DL placement. For the time being, the club could utilize Michael Taylor in center while also playing Bryce Harper there at times, though obviously that’s not the optimal alignment.

No Structural Damage For Sammy Solis

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  • While the Nationals are holding their breath over a new and potentially serious injury issue tonight, the team did get a bit of positive news earlier. An MRI came back clean for southpaw Sammy Solis, as Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com tweets. While there’s some inflammation present in his balky elbow, there’s no ligament issue.

Nationals Place Koda Glover On 10-Day DL

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The Nationals announced today that right-hander Koda Glover has been placed on the 10-day disabled list due to an impingement in his right hip. As Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post writes, the move is somewhat precautionary. “We are going to need Koda for the long run because he’s never pitched a potential seven months of the season. So just trying to keep an eye on these things,” said manager Dusty Baker. “Cold weather probably didn’t help last night. He didn’t want to go on the DL. We think it’s best for him and what’s best for him is also what’s best for us.” Glover missed the final month of the 2016 season with a partially torn labrum in that same hip, Janes notes, and he elected to undergo physical therapy instead of offseason surgery. The 23-year-old righty is “extremely confident” that he’ll be ready to go in 10 days, Janes adds. Left-hander Matt Grace will take Glover’s spot in the bullpen for now.

Jacob Turner To Make Spot Start For Nats

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  • Nationals manager Dusty Baker confirmed that the team will give Jacob Turner a spot start tonight while Stephen Strasburg is out on paternity leave, as Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post writes. While Turner’s track record in the Majors isn’t impressive, Baker suggested that the team wasn’t comfortable bringing someone up to make their first Major League start at Coors Field. “We thought about other guys, but we didn’t really want their first start in the big leagues to be in Colorado,” Baker said of that potentially daunting task. “He has big league experience and Stras is having a second child. If not, it would’ve been Stras out there.”

Latest On The Nationals’ Bullpen Needs

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The Nationals’ bullpen is off to a dismal start to the season, with a collective 4.86 ERA through the season’s first three weeks. Blake Treinen has already been removed from the closer’s role, albeit with a relatively quick hook (he’s thrown just seven innings this year). Koda Glover and Shawn Kelley are presently sharing ninth-inning work, and they’re two of just three Nats relievers that have ERAs south of 5.00 to begin the year. (Matt Albers has not allowed a run in four innings.)

In light of those struggles, Jim Bowden of ESPN and MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM reports that the Nats have “touched base” with multiple teams on their closers. Specifically, he cites a pair of names that are no stranger to trade rumors: David Robertson of the White Sox and Alex Colome of the Rays. However, Bowden adds that the Nats “aren’t even in the same ballpark” when it comes to the asking price on those players.

Robertson, 32, has allowed just one run through his first 6 2/3 innings this season and logged an impressive 12-to-3 K/BB ratio along the way. He’s earning $12MM this season (of which about $10.6MM remains) and will earn $13MM next year in the final season of a four-year, $46MM contract. The 28-year-old Colome, meanwhile, has yet to allow a run this year, though he’s curiously punched out just four hitters through nine innings after posting a gaudy 11.3 K/9 rate in a breakout 2016 campaign. He’s not yet arbitration eligible and can be controlled through the 2020 season, so it’s hardly surprising to hear that Tampa Bay’s asking price may be quite lofty.

As alternative options, Bowden lists Brandon Kintzler of the Twins, Brandon Maurer of the Padres and any of the Athletics’ late-inning arms, which include Sean Doolittle, Ryan Madson and Santiago Casilla. It should be noted, though, that there’s no specific mention of trade talks with any of those clubs, so the suggestions seem fairly speculative in nature.

Furthermore, each of those names comes with a caveat. Kintzler’s experience as a closer is highly limited, and a year ago at this time he was in Triple-A after signing a minor league deal with Minnesota. As a free agent at season’s end, though, he’s a natural trade candidate. Maurer is controllable through 2019, which could create a significant asking price, and he hasn’t exactly established a track record of dominance himself. And when it comes to the A’s, Doolittle is on a terrific contract, while Madson’s three-year, $22MM looks to be an overpay. Casilla, meanwhile, can’t even be traded without his consent until June 15 given the fact that he only signed with Oakland as a free agent this past offseason (a two-year, $11MM deal).

The Nationals, according to Bowden, believe that the 24-year-old Glover can be their closer of the future, but there’s some question in the organization about whether it’s too early in his career to hand him the job. Glover has just 27 1/3 MLB innings under his belt and has been solid but not overpowering in that time; the former eighth-rounder has a 4.28 ERA, a 22-to-8 K/BB ratio and a 42 percent ground-ball rate in his young career.

Nationals To Place Stephen Strasburg On Paternity List

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  • The Nationals will place righty Stephen Strasburg on the paternity leave list Monday, meaning he’ll miss his scheduled start Tuesday in Colorado, reports Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com. Washington is likely to recall Jacob Turner to fill Strasburg’s void for a start, while the latter will return in time to take the mound either Friday or Saturday.

Nationals Outright Grant Green

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The Nationals announced that they have sent infielder Grant Green outright to Triple-A Syracuse. Washington designated the out-of-options Green for assignment on Friday, and he subsequently cleared waivers.

Green’s stay with the Nats this month lasted just over a week, aligning with the DL placements of shortstops Trea Turner and Stephen Drew. Once Turner came back, there was no longer a need for Green, who only appeared in two games and collected three plate appearances. A first-round pick of the Athletics in 2009 (No. 13 overall), Green has has cracked the majors in five straight seasons, but the journeyman has hit just .248/.283/.336 in 353 trips to the plate.

The 29-year-old Green spent last season with the Giants organization and slashed a respectable .319/.336/.454 in 364 PAs with their Triple-A club. Overall, he has hit an impressive .309/.351/.466 in 3,223 Triple-A PAs.

Details On Why Nationals Chose Adam Eaton Over Andrew McCutchen

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Financial reasons played a key role in the Nationals’ offseason decision to trade for then-White Sox center fielder Adam Eaton instead of the Pirates’ Andrew McCutchen, reports FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal (video link). With his $4MM salary this year, Eaton is much cheaper than McCutchen ($14MM), and acquiring the latter would have forced the Nationals to jettison left-hander Gio Gonzalez and his $12MM price tag in a separate deal, says Rosenthal. In addition to having concerns over how their payroll would have looked with McCutchen, the Nationals had no interest in meeting Pittsburgh’s lofty demands for the five-time All-Star. Washington bought high on Eaton, whose excellent 2016 helped convinced the club to give up high-end pitching prospects Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning for him. McCutchen, on the other hand, had a career-worst season last year, yet the Pirates wanted an even more impressive package for him than the Nationals sent the White Sox, according to Rosenthal. Pittsburgh held out for both pitching prospects and major leaguers, leading the Nats to go in another direction.

Mets Injury Updates: Duda, Flores, Cespedes, Cabrera, d’Arnaud

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The health issues have begun to pile up for the Mets, who just began their first series of the year against the division-rival Nationals. Manager Terry Collins spoke with reporters (including MLB.com’s Danny Knobler) before the game and provided updates on several players:

  • First baseman Lucas Duda is heading to the DL after hyperextending his elbow in a collision at first base on Wednesday. It’s not known how long he’s expected to miss, but clearly the expectation is he needs at least a ten-day layoff. While the hot-hitting, left-handed slugger will be missed in the lineup, he’s actually a fairly easy player to replace for New York given the presence of three left-handed corner outfielders — including Jay Bruce, who’s playing at first again tonight.
  • Also hitting the 10-day DL is infielder Wilmer Flores, who is currently in the hospital for treatment of an infection in his right knee. It’s not immediately clear what it’ll take to get him back in working order, but he’s expected to remain hospitalized through the weekend, per the report.
  • Coming up to fill in for that pair are utilityman T.J. Rivera and lefty Sean Gilmartin. The latter is expected to function in a relief role, but could see a spot start. Jacob deGrom was unable to take the hill tonight after coming down with a stiff neck, but he’ll try again tomorrow. If the seemingly minor issue still proves problematic, then Gilmartin will step into the rotation briefly.
  • While those two DL placements were the only ones required at this point, there are several other key players who are too banged up to play tonight. Yoenis Cespedes will need a few days off to rest his hamstring, though it’s surely a good sign that he’s being kept on the active roster. Likewise, a hammy issue is holding back shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera, though he’s expected to be back in the lineup tomorrow. And backstop Travis d’Arnaud’s bruised wrist left him unable to throw well enough to suit up tonight, though it seems he too will be back in short order. While the club has a skeleton crew tonight, they’ll seek to get by without further roster shakeups for the time being.
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