The Winter Meetings usually wrap-up after the Rule-5 draft, but this event actually runs through tomorrow in Dallas, Texas. The Washington Nationals were the surprise lottery winners in the MLB Draft after the ball bounced their way for the first pick in the MLB Draft in July. Today, eyes are on the Rule-5 draft, and unlike the prior two years, the Nationals were not attached to any rumors from their spot at being able to select a Rule-5 eligible minor leaguer at pick No. 6. With RHP Evan Reifert available, the Nats selected him. He will turn 26 in May and has pitch up to the Double-A level. The Nats will give him a chance in the bullpen.
Reifert, 26 in May, went 2-0 with a 1.96 ERA in 35 relief appearances and 41⅓ innings in Double-A last season with an excellent 0.92 WHIP and 65 Ks. He also had 11 appearances with more than 1.0 inning. In the Arizona Fall League in 2023, Evan Reifert struck out 25 and allowed just one hit in 11 2/3 scoreless innings and won the AFL’s Pitcher of the Year Award. Reifert’s slider is his best pitch when he can tunnel that to look like his fastball. The slider has late vertical drop, and is often spiked for swing and miss action out of the zone.
Since Reifert takes a 40-man roster spot, the Nats have three open spots with 37 taken now. As previously discussed, there are other players who could be removed from the roster if the team needs more spots this offseason. It is expected that two spots could open up with Josiah Gray and Mason Thompson moved to the 60-day IL during Spring Training.
There were several players the Nats left unprotected who could have been scooped up by another team with names like Andrew Alvarez, Jack Sinclair, and Kevin Made at this year’s Rule-5 draft which took place in Dallas today at 2 p.m. ET — but none of them were selected.
Teams that draft a player today must pay the departing team a fee of $100,000 and then must keep the drafted player on their active big league roster throughout the 2025 season. The player can’t be sent to the Minors without first clearing waivers and then getting offered back to his original organization for half his draft price.
In the past two seasons, the Nats selected Thaddeus Ward and Nasim Nunez in back-to-back Rule-5 drafts. Ward was recently DFA’d and was claimed by the Orioles. They DFA’d Ward who went unclaimed, and the Orioles optioned him to their Triple-A roster. Nunez remains on the Nationals’ roster. So far so good with him as he looks to compete for a roster spot on the Nats 2025 team.
As you saw with Ward, the risk/reward of taking a player in the Rule-5 draft starts with limited experience and that leads to having to almost hide players on the roster. Ward took up one of the eight coveted spots in the bullpen and was rarely used. Nunez took up a coveted spot on the Nats’ bench and was rarely used.
In the meantime, we hope our Nationals are focused on player acquisitions. As of right now, the Nats have made no moves in free agency or trades that have been sourced as a done deal. Plenty of rumors though.
Yesterday also served as the Nats’ day to do interviews at the Winter Meetings. Some good tidbits, from general manager Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez.
Martinez gave a CJ Abrams update. Abrams had an abrupt ending to his season in the final week of September when he was demoted to Triple-A because he violated team policy after he had been warned previously per sources.
“I called him a few times. He’s hard to get a hold of. I saw his workouts. He’s doing well. Like I said, I love CJ. We have an unbelievable relationship. So I’m looking forward to getting him back.”
— Martinez said in an interview
“As you know, he’s going to be our everyday shortstop. He had a great first half, struggled a little bit the second half, but he’s going to be just fine. Like I said, he’s working. He’s working on his swing. He’s been working out. He’s getting ready to go.”
Martinez’s comment that he called Abrams a few times, and he is “hard to get a hold of” has some wondering if the two every talked. At this point, we are in the “quiet period” from November 17 to January 1 when teams cannot contact their players from roughly Thanksgiving to New Years. There was about a 45-day window when Martinez could phone his player after the season ended.
Rizzo had a great answer when asked about the direction of his team, and talked about, “We need some veteran presence. … We need more power. … Now is not the time to hit the brakes, it’s time to hit the gas.”
Rizzo talked about his team’s deficiencies, and was clear that being second-to-last in home runs in the 2024 season must change. The Nats led MLB in the speed game, but the combination of power and speed on offense is what equals runs created.
“I believe in chemistry and culture. We want to bring the right guys in. We’ve got a lot of young guys. We want a guy that’s going to help our young guys.”
— Martinez said at the Winter Meetings
“We’re definitely looking for corner [infield] guys, we really are. We need to fill that first base void. Even though Yepez did a nice job, I see Yepez doing multiple things, maybe DH as well. Like I said, we’ve got our feelers out. We’re talking to a lot of different guys. We’ll see what transpires.”
“We’re definitely looking for some
power bats at both corner spots, maybe a DH spot. We’ll see what transpires.”
“We’re here. We’re looking. We’re searching. I know we’d like to add a couple more bullpen arms. We’ll see what comes up.”
The talk all sounds great on paper, and you really hope this translates into action where impact players are added to the roster. The fans want to see legitimate top-of-the-game stars added to the roster, and you have to think some of the players want to see it also.
“We’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve got ourselves a good core group of young position players, and the makings of a real rotation. My thought is when you have a rotation — everything is possible. When you don’t, nothing is possible. We’re seeing glimmers of MacKenzie Gore being a frontline guy. His stuff is frontline. We have four other young controllable starters who all matured at the same time [in 2024].”
— Rizzo said in an interview
“Now it’s time to take that next step forward. You have CJ Abrams — he’s a 20/30 guy at shortstop. Luis Garcia took a step forward this year. We have our two good young outfield prospects (James Wood and Dylan Crews), and one of the best defenders in baseball in center field in Jacob Young.”
“We like where we’re at. We have a good fertile farm system. We have impact players we think on the way here that are going to be close. We have another level of guys, pitching wise, that’s going to be big league impact guys in Jarlin Susana, Travis Sykora and Alex Clemmey.”
As we look for more clues as to the type of player Rizzo is looking to add as a new acquisition, he gave some more details, on what that player could look like.
“To [acquire] a veteran bat in the middle of the lineup takes a little bit of pressure off of the young guys, and is important to us.”
— Rizzo said about new acquisitions
“It makes a lot of sense to [acquire] a first base/DH type of guy, run producer. … So if we go out there and get a left-handed bat to DH or to play first base, and also defense is going to be important to us at that first base position.”
“And Brady House is 21 years old in Triple-A, held his own, and had a good Double-A season. You can see the power. He can back-spin a baseball. He has power to right-center and pull-power. He plays really good third base and has a gun for an arm. He and YoYo Morales are going to be our future corner infielders in ’25 or beyond.”
Rizzo also spoke about Robert Hassell III and said he would compete in Spring Training to make the Opening Day lineup. Hassell has an early advantage by being on the 40-man roster already. The issue for Hassell is that Alex Call might be the fourth outfielder on paper today, and the team might only carry Call and a DH who can play outfield in a bench that has to also carry an infielder or two plus a back-up catcher.
There has long been a debate on the best teams in the Nats’ 20-year history. Some would say 2012 and 2019 were very good teams, but the 2018 team was the best in the Nats’ history with All-Stars at every position except Adam Eaton who never actually got the honor. Look at this lineup with three future Hall-of-Famers: LINEUP. Then you have that 2015 team forever known as the “Where’s My Ring” team as Bryce Harper said in Spring Training. Oddly, the 2015 and 2018 teams didn’t go to the postseason. The 2016 and 2017 teams did and lost in excruciating and embarrassing fashion. The 2019 team won the World Series because they executed in key spots and Howie Kendrick was as clutch as you can get. But the chemistry on that team was second-to-none. Rizzo for the first time has publicly discussed this.
“That ’19 team was the epitome of that [team-first approach]. That was probably the fourth or fifth most talented team we had — but it was the best team we ever had. And I think when you have that selfless, selfless team worried about just winning baseball games, and when you win, everyone eats better. That’s our motto.”
— Rizzo said
That’s a good motto.
