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Nationals Place Dakota Bacus On IL, Recall James Bourque

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The Nationals have placed Dakota Bacus on the 10-day disabled list with a right flexor strain. James Bourque has been recalled to take his roster spot, per the team.

Bacus, 29, made his major league debut this season for Washington to meandering results. He’s appeared in 11 games for a 7.94 ERA/5.44 FIP across 11 1/3 innings. Bacus started the year out strong with four scoreless appearances, but he’s been called upon a lot this season, and his last couple of appearances went particularly poorly. Still, outside of a couple of blowups, Bacus did a nice job stepping up when he wasn’t necessarily a Plan A option for manager Dave Martinez coming into the season.

Of course, very little has gone as planned for the Nationals this season, and that includes the bullpen. Sean Doolittle – once a stalwart of the Nats’ pen – has seen his struggles from the tail end of 2019 carry over to this season with a 7.11 ERA. Daniel Hudson has continued to pitch fairly well despite a bloated 7.35 ERA, though he, like Bacus, has been overtaxed. He’s also blown three saves in definitive fashion. On the plus side, Tanner Rainey (2.08 ERA, 17 1/3 innings) brought his triple-digit heat to high-leverage innings and established himself as a setup option for the Nats.

Bottom line: Stephen Strasburg being lost for the season and Joe Ross opting out thinned the Nationals’ pitching corps. Struggles in the rotation from Erick Fedde and Anibal Sanchez spilled over into the bullpen and put a lot of innings on the Nats’ bullpen arms.

They’ll get a fresh one now to help out in Bourque. The 27-year-old has been featured at the tail end of Nationals’ top-30 prospect lists. He’s made two appearances so far this season at the tail end of July, providing 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief. Between Double-A and Triple-A in 2019, Bourque logged 64 innings across 47 appearances with a 4.22 ERA, 12.1 K/9, and 5.1 BB/9.

Rizzo On Nationals Trade Deadline

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The Washington Nationals have been unable to string together wins so far this season. After losing Anthony Rendon to free agency and Stephen Strasburg to injury, the reigning champs are in a weakened state. Newly-extended GM Mike Rizzo – who accomplished the rare feat of getting ejected from the club box on Sunday – didn’t see enough progress to make a move at the deadline, especially considering their limited scouting capabilities. Rizzo, a former Scouting Director in Arizona, values scouting input more than most of his contemporaries. In his words, per NBC Todd Dybas of NBC Sports, “So, the combination of where we were going into the trade deadline, performing on the field, and the fact I didn’t feel really comfortable about making trades kind of blind where you haven’t seen one of these prospects play in a year or so, impacted us in our decision-making.” Rizzo also didn’t want to give up the possibility of going on a run and getting back into the playoff race, so the Nats stood pat rather than deal upcoming free agents like Asdrubal Cabrera and Adam Eaton. While we’re here, let’s grab some injury updates…

Mike Rizzo Discusses Trea Turner, Dave Martinez

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Before the coronavirus put the baseball season on pause this spring, the Nationals and star shortstop Trea Turner engaged in extension talks, general manager Mike Rizzo confirmed to reporters (including Todd Dybas of NBC Sports Washington). Of course, the pandemic introduced plenty of economic uncertainty for all 30 clubs. Nevertheless, Rizzo expressed an interest in revisiting those discussions once he gets an opportunity to examine the organization’s financial “landscape” (via Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post).

The 27-year-old Turner has done nothing to dissuade the front office’s interest in keeping him in the fold long-term. He’s somewhat quietly putting up a fabulous season, hitting .368/.421/.632 with nine home runs and five stolen bases in 171 plate appearances. While he obviously won’t sustain a .393 batting average on balls in play, Turner has seemingly turned a corner offensively. He’s striking out at a career-low 14.6% clip and has hit significantly fewer pop-ups this season. For his career, Turner’s a .297/.354/.479 hitter (118 wRC+) with generally average defense at shortstop, positioning him as a 4-5 win player per 600 plate appearances.

Turner and the Nationals agreed on a $7.45MM salary to avoid arbitration this offseason, his second year of eligibility. The former Super Two player is currently slated to go through the process twice more (and figures to earn a nice raise this winter) before reaching free agency after 2022. His first would-be free agent year would be his age-30 season.

More immediately, Rizzo says he plans to turn his attention to the managerial chair. Skipper Dave Martinez is amidst the final guaranteed season of his three-year contract, although the club does possess an option on his services for 2021. Rizzo made clear today he hopes not to have to exercise that option, instead preferring to hammer out a long-term extension with Martinez (via Jessica Camerato of MLB.com). “That’s the plan going forward,” Rizzo said. “See if we can get something done (and) negotiate a longer-term deal with him that goes beyond just picking up the option.” The GM himself just inked an extension yesterday that’ll keep him in D.C. though 2023.

The Nationals have had something of a rocky history with managers, with the Lerner family ownership group notoriously reluctant to commit to skippers on long-term deals. Martinez, though, is the only manager to have led the franchise to a World Series title, so it’d be a shock to see the parties not eventually come to terms on an extension.

Nationals Recall Carter Kieboom, Designate Wilmer Difo

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The Nationals have designated infielder Wilmer Difo for assignment and called infielder Carter Kieboom back up from their alternate training site, the team announced.  The move reinstalls Kieboom as the Nats’ everyday third baseman, manager Davey Martinez told MASNsports.com’s Mark Zuckerman and other reporters today.

Kieboom was optioned to the alternate site 10 days ago, making his stay in Fredericksburg a minimal one.  The demotion raised some eyebrows at the time, though Kieboom had only hit .200/.359/.200 through his first 64 plate appearances for Washington this season.  While the club may have been opting to use more experienced players than Kieboom in an attempt to turn the season around, the Nationals’ 2-10 record over their last 12 games has sunk them to last place in the NL East, and they now seem to be looking ahead to 2021.

Despite his lack of production (.535 OPS) over 107 PA at the big league level, the 23-year-old Kieboom is clearly still seen as a big part of the Nationals’ future.  The 28th overall pick of the 2016 draft has posted a .287/.378/.469 slash line and 45 homers over 1462 minor league PA and has little left to prove on the farm, which is why D.C. was hoping Kieboom could slide right into an everyday role this season and at least somewhat fill the void left behind by free agent departure Anthony Rendon.

Since it seems like Kieboom will spend the rest of the season on Washington’s MLB roster, the youngster is still on pace to gain a full year of (prorated) service time, as Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post notes.  Kieboom’s demotion won’t, therefore, give the Nats an extra year of control over Kieboom’s services.

Now in his 11th season in the Nationals organization, Difo has a .247/.309/.348 career slash line over 1060 Major League PA, coming off the bench to play second base, shortstop, third base, and a handful of games in the outfield.  After seeing semi-regular action in both 2017 and 2018, Difo spent much of last season in the minors, and he didn’t appear on the Nats’ postseason roster.  Washington agreed to a $1MM salary for Difo in 2020, which was his first year of arbitration eligibility.

Nationals, GM Mike Rizzo Agree To Three-Year Extension

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The Nationals have agreed to a contract extension with general manager Mike Rizzo, according to a report from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. He had been working under the final year of his existing contract. Rizzo’s new deal will be for three years, per Rosenthal, keeping him at the helm of the Nats through at least 2023.

Rizzo, 59, took over as the Washington GM in 2009, first in the interim before earning the permanent title. During his 11-plus years as the lead decision-maker, Rizzo’s Nats teams have made five postseason appearances, including last year’s famous run to the World Series. Of course, last year’s success largely erased the Nationals’ reputation as playoff disappointments, which they garnered after four NLDS exits (three of which required a decisive fifth game) in a six-year stretch from 2012-2017. The Nationals have an overall 951-867 (0.523) W-L record during Rizzo’s tenure.

Under his leadership, the Nats have drafted stars like Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon, and others. They’ve had success in the international amateur market, signing the likes of Juan Soto, Victor Robles, and the emerging Luis Garcia as teenagers.

Furthermore, Washington hasn’t been shy about handing out significant contracts in free agency. The Nats’ starting pitching corps, especially, was built through free agency, with Max Scherzer, Strasburg, and Patrick Corbin earning a combined $595MM in guaranteed contracts from the Nationals on the open market.

Rizzo has been instrumental in guiding the Nationals through tumultuous losing seasons (which allowed the club to acquire talent early in the draft) and elevating the team to contending status, with eight consecutive winning seasons under their belt (though that streak is likely to end this year).

With Rizzo locked up for the foreseeable future, the Nationals will likely turn their attention to another top employee, manager Dave Martinez. Washington holds a $1.2MM club option over Martinez for the 2021 season, which would be Martinez’s fourth as the Nats’ skipper. In fact, the franchise hasn’t had a manager last more than three seasons since Frank Robinson’s five years leading the Expos and Nats.

Juan Soto Out With Elbow Soreness

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Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez is giving Juan Soto a couple of days off, per Jessica Camerato of MLB.com (via Twitter). Soto has been experiencing some elbow soreness. The Nationals’ young superstar underwent and MRI, but the results were good, so Martinez is just giving Soto a couple of days to rest and recover.

Though the Nationals have face-planted in their title defense season, there’s been no such hangover for the 21-year-old Soto. Soto is currently the major-league leader in slugging (.758) and OPS (1.211). He’s slashing .354/.453/.758 with 11 long balls in 117 plate appearances. Soto has more walks (17) than strikeouts (16) while registering in the top 1% for exit velocity (94.2 mph) and top 2 percent for hard hit percentage (55.4%).

Soto rested for both games of yesterday’s doubleheader against the Braves, and he figures to get another day or two to rest his elbow. Especially since the Nats are just one game ahead of the Pirates for the worst record in the National League, they are likely to value Soto’s long-term health over any benefit they’ll get from rushing him into action over the final few weeks of what’s bound to be a lost season. Washington sits 5 games out of a wild card spot, and while that deficit isn’t impossible to overcome, they would need to turn around their play drastically enough to leapfrog five other teams in the NL.

Soto missed the first couple of days of the season after testing positive for COVID-19, though he was asymptomatic.

NL East Trade Deadline Recap

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With the deadline in the rearview mirror, we’ll look back at each NL East team’s trade activity over the past month.

Atlanta Braves

Miami Marlins

New York Mets

Philadelphia Phillies

Washington Nationals

  • None

Nationals “Looking To Buy”

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The Nationals are “looking to buy today,” hears The Athletic’s Jayson Stark from teams that have talked to the Washington ballclub.  This is a bit of an advancement from what we heard on Saturday from MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, who said, “If they do anything, it’ll be buy.”  The Nats are three games out from second place in the NL East, currently their easiest path to the playoffs.

In an article Thursday, MLB.com’s Jessica Camerato suggested a multi-inning reliever, ideally with the ability to handle lefties, could be a reasonable target.  GM Mike Rizzo expressed comfort with his starting pitching depth – even sans Stephen Strasburg – on a call with reporters over a week ago, but that hardly rules out the pursuit of a starting pitcher.  Stark speculates that the Diamondbacks’ Robbie Ray could be a fit.  Rizzo presided over the Nationals’ drafting of Ray in 2010, an excellent find in the 12th round.

The Nationals recently picked up some infield depth with the recent signing of Brock Holt.  According to Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic, the club may still be seeking a potential bench bat.

Nationals Won't Be Sellers

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  • The Washington Nationals have stumbled through a rough first half to their title defense, but don’t expect the champs to sell, per MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. Per Heyman, selling is “not in their DNA.” It certainly hasn’t been an option most seasons for the Nats, who haven’t had a losing season since 2011. In recent seasons, we’ve seen them hold onto Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon instead of moving them before free agency. They did move Daniel Murphy a couple seasons ago to the Cubs, but even then the Nats didn’t pull the trigger until just before the August deadline. Theoretically, the Nats could look to move veterans like Kurt Suzuki, Adam Eaton, Asdrubal Cabrera, or Eric Thames, but Heyman reports that GM Mike Rizzo is more likely to add than subtract.

Nationals Sign Brock Holt

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The Nationals have agreed to terms with free-agent infielder Brock Holt, according to Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post. Holt had been designated and released by the Brewers earlier this week. The Nats will have to make a corresponding move to clear a spot for Holt on the roster.

Holt, formerly of the Red Sox, will join the Nats as an option to play virtually anywhere on the diamond. He’s in line to serve as depth primarily at third base and in the corner outfield.

As MLBTR’s Steve Adams noted on Thursday when Holt was released, he can be signed for a prorated version of the league minimum salary, which comes out to a hair under $100K. That made him a viable target for interested teams, despite an abysmal start to the season with Milwaukee.

After signing a one-year deal with the Brewers in the winter, Holt’s Milwaukee tenure was short-lived following a 3-for-30 stretch in his first 16 games.

Still, the 32-year-old Holt can point to a more passable .270/.340/.374 batting line during his seven years in Boston. As a depth option, he’ll offer another left-handed bat, a welcome balance to the right-handed Howie Kendrick and Josh Harrison.

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