Rizzo appeared on MLB Network Radio yesterday and said he was waiting for Finnegan to say “yes,” and that it “takes two to tango.”
Rarely do you non-tender a player, and get him back months later as a free agent. That is exactly what has happened with Kyle Finnegan who was non-tendered on Nov. 22. But our source told us that general manager Mike Rizzo always left the door open if Finnegan wanted the deal he was offered at the time of his non-tender. Today was that day.
Some would say the Nats could have tendered Finnegan for 2025 via arbitration, with MLBTR contributor and Nats’ arb consultant, Matt Swartz, projecting him for a salary of $8.6 million on the MLBTR site. Now the risk was that if Finnegan was tendered, he could have asked for much more than $8.6 million and conceivably won that amount at an arbitration hearing. Rizzo felt he was worth $6 million, and reportedly that is what Finnegan received which is nearly a 20 percent increase over the $5.1 million he made last year. In the meantime, the harsh reality was that Finnegan and his agent at Warner Sports got to look around and see that other teams weren’t throwing big money at them.
Some felt that even $6 million was an overpay, but that looks to be the number, and with that, the Nationals have now spent just over $50 million in this offseason on player acquisitions. Amazingly, the Nationals have added 11 players on MLB deals since the Winter Meetings. In total, the Nats have a projected CBT payroll of $134.2 million. That is $3.9 million below where the payroll finished at the 2024 season per Baseball Prospectus’ Cots Baseball. That is okay, the Nationals will certainly spend more money this year on players per our source who said the team budgeted more money because of the outlays they have agreed to on player acquisitions, international free agent signings, and of course projected draft bonuses in the upcoming draft.
Finnegan, 33, made his MLB debut with the Nationals five years ago in 2020. To date, his 291 appearances are significant. Last year, the Nats’ closer notched a career-high 38 saves. But there were troublesome peripherals as his K-rate dropped to 22 percent. There was too much pitch-to-contact, and we saw more hard contact rates. But despite that, Finnegan was a late addition to the All-Star team given his strong first half of the season.
“We’ve had open discussions with Kyle and his representatives. It takes two to tango. We’ve kept in close contact with him, and they just haven’t been able to say ‘Yes’.”
— Rizzo said on MLB Network Radio yesterday
While wins and losses are not a great indicator for pitchers, Finnegan took a career high 8-losses in 2024 against just 3-wins. That seems odd for a closer with his high conversion rate, and that is where most of Finnegan’s issues were in games that he was brought in for tie games.
The bullpen needed another arm with closer experience as there was certainly a void there. Finnegan filled that need, and his set-up men will be Jose A. Ferrer and Jorge Lopez. In addition, Derek Law and Lucas Sims could get a lot of high leverage work. Those are five of your eight bullpen arms with three slots open. One could go to Rule-5 acquisition, Evan Reifert, leaving just two spots. Another name to watch for is Colin Poche who was acquired on a minor league deal. Then the Nats have several in-house candidates on the 40-man roster.
On July 3, Finnegan had a 1.98 ERA, and then for the remainer of the season posted up a troublesome 5.93 ERA. While that averaged 3.68, that was enough for Rizzo to make his decision that he would not be paying a 60 percent raise to Finnegan, and went with more of a compromise. Going back to the trade deadline of 2023 and 2024, Finnegan’s name was a hot rumor — and as we know, he was never traded.
Now he is back, and the bullpen looks much closer to Opening Day ready.
