The Washington Nationals cut ties with three players Tuesday night, declining to tender contacts for the 2022 season to right-handed relievers Wander Suero and Ryne Harper and first baseman Mike Ford. They also signed second baseman César Hernández to a one-year, $4 million contract plus incentives, according to a person familiar with the terms. That was their first step into this winter’s free agent market.
The Nationals have tendered contracts to the rest of their arbitration-eligible players. That list consists of Juan Soto, Josh Bell, Victor Robles, Erick Fedde, Joe Ross, Tanner Rainey and Austin Voth. The exception was outfielder Andrew Stevenson, who signed a one-year, $850,000 deal Monday, according to a person familiar with the terms, avoiding arbitration. Those moves, along with claiming infielder Lucius Fox off waivers from the Baltimore Orioles, left the Nationals with 38 players on their 40-man roster.
Hernández, 31, had a career-high 21 homers for Cleveland and the Chicago White Sox in 2021. He could be the regular second baseman, should the Nationals want to test Luis García, 21, more at shortstop. Or he could be a switch-hitting bench infielder if their plan is to play García at second — as they did in 2021 — and Alcides Escobar, who re-signed in October, at short. Hernandez previously spent seven seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Major League Baseball and the players’ union recently agreed to move the non-tender deadline up two days because of an impending lockout. And since that work stoppage is expected to arrive at midnight Thursday, any non-tendered players — such as Suero, Harper and Ford — had about 28 hours to sign with another team before transactions freeze until a new collective bargaining agreement is in place. The Nationals, in turn, have a chance to survey the market for non-tendered players who largely will sign for one-year, low-cost contracts.
Suero and Harper were part of last year’s bullpen. Ford, a 29-year-old first baseman, was added via waivers in August, assigned to the minors and never promoted. Suero, 30, was never able to consistently hone his plus cutter during four seasons with the Nationals. But he was used more than any other reliever in the past three years, and such a heavy workload was a factor in his lack of success. Since the start of the 2019 season, he appeared in 145 games for Washington. Rainey, the next-closest reliever, appeared in 110.
Sean Doolittle, a key reliever on the World Series-winning club in 2019, once credited Suero for shouldering a burden so other pitchers, namely Doolittle and Daniel Hudson, could be fresh for the playoff run. Suero also developed into a mentor of sorts for younger Latin American relievers, helping them bridge the language gap with English-speaking coaches.
Harper is eighth on that list of relief appearances since 2019, checking in with 57. The Nationals acquired him in a trade with the Minnesota Twins in January 2020. And while Harper had pockets of success in mop-up innings — mixing a high-80s fastball with an assortment of curves — he often slipped in high-leverage situations, showing a low ceiling.
Ford had an even briefer stint with the franchise, arriving in late summer from the Tampa Bay Rays via the New York Yankees. Ford was solid with the Yankees in 2019, smacking 12 homers in 50 games. When the Nationals claimed him off waivers, it took a low-risk, high-upside flier on a player who could rediscover his power stroke. That just won’t happen in Washington.
As a work stoppage nears, a handful of could-be contenders have kept the hot stove going. Money has flown around the majors. Max Scherzer’s new contract with the New York Mets, agreed to Monday, has a record average annual value of $43.3 million. The Nationals, however, in the early stages of their rebuild, had been all but inactive before signing Hernández.
But they did claim Fox off waivers Tuesday and made a handful of minor league signings in the past week: right-handed relievers Victor Arano and Brayan Romero and infielder Richard Ureña.
The 24-year-old Fox, a native of Nassau in the Bahamas, finished 2021 with decent numbers for the Class AAA Omaha Storm Chasers, an affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. In 270 plate appearances across minor league levels, he finished with a batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage slash line of .245/.353/.376. Like Hernández, most of his defensive innings have been at second base. Fox also has a minor league option remaining, according to FanGraphs, offering some roster flexibility.
Otherwise, at this point of a still-young winter, Washington has behaved like a team expecting to make few additions to a young and inexperienced core. And as for Soto, Bell, Robles, Fedde, Ross, Rainey and Voth, who were tendered contracts Tuesday, the next steps of their offseason are unclear, too.
Typically, the Nationals and these players would have until mid-January to agree on a salary for 2022 or exchange figures that would be presented at an arbitration hearing. But with CBA talks ongoing, it is possible this process is affected by whatever is eventually agreed upon by the owners and the union. In that way, arbitration proceedings are no different from the rest of the sport.
