The Nationals officially announced the re-signing of Trevor Williams to a two-year free agent deal. It’s reportedly a $14MM guarantee for the John Boggs & Associates client. The veteran right-hander turns 33 next April.
The last time Williams was a free agent, he signed a two-year, $13MM pact with Washington. Despite an uneven performance over the past two seasons, he showed enough upside to convince the club to bring him back on an almost identical deal. In 2023, the righty was an innings eater for the Nationals, providing them with 144 1/3 frames in 30 starts. It was the first time he passed the 100-inning threshold since 2019. However, there was little else to like about his performance. No NL pitcher (min. 140 IP) had a higher ERA than Williams that year. He also finished among the bottom five in strikeout rate, SIERA, and xERA. Things turned especially sour at the end of the year; he gave up 33 runs (32 earned) in 35 2/3 innings over his final eight starts.
The 2024 season was a completely different story. Williams got off to a red-hot start, pitching to a 2.22 ERA across 11 outings in April and May. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to do the one thing he did well in 2023: stay on the field. A flexor muscle strain in his pitching arm kept him out for nearly four months from May to September. He continued to see great results in two starts upon his return (10 IP, 1 ER, 12 K), but he finished the year with just 13 starts and 66 2/3 innings under his belt.
Most of the underlying data indicates Williams wasn’t quite as dominant as he seemed on the surface. His .267 BABIP and 4.2% home run-to-fly ball ratios were well below his career averages, while his 80.2% left-on-base percentage was well above his typical rate. His 22.7% strikeout rate marked a significant improvement from the year before, but it was only a touch above league average for a starting pitcher. Thus, his 3.96 SIERA was significantly higher than his 2.03 ERA.
Regardless, Williams was still a productive starter when he was on the field, even if the peripheral numbers suggest he was more of a mid-rotation arm than an ace. If he can figure out how to combine the best parts of his 2023 and ’24 seasons, he will be well worth a $7MM annual salary over the next two seasons. Of course, it’s far from a guarantee that he’ll be able to do that. Williams has reached 30 starts just twice in his nine-year MLB tenure, and he came into the 2024 season with a career 4.48 ERA and 4.66 SIERA. He is also entering his mid-thirties. In theory, his excellent command should help him thrive as an older starter. Then again, he could be in real trouble if he loses any more velocity on his four-seam fastball. It was a valuable pitch in 2024, but at 88.9 mph, it’s already one of the slowest heaters in the league.
Williams will return to a Nationals rotation that also features de facto ace MacKenzie Gore, free agent acquisition (and project) Michael Soroka, and a handful of mid-to-back-end types who broke out for Washington last year: Jake Irvin, Mitchell Parker, and DJ Herz. Top prospect Cade Cavalli will also factor into the equation, although Spencer Nusbaum of the Washington Post notes that the team will be monitoring Cavalli’s innings in 2025 and could option him to Triple-A to begin the year. Meanwhile, Josiah Gray is recovering from Tommy John surgery and will be out for most (if not all) of the 2025 campaign. It’s unclear how manager Dave Martinez will set up his rotation to begin the season, but barring an injury or a disastrous performance this spring, it feels safe to presume that Williams be one of the starting five (or six?) come Opening Day.
Stephen J. Nesbitt of the Athletic first reported the Nationals were re-signing Williams on a two-year, $14MM deal.
Dang. I low key wanted the Braves to get him and now seeing tis I’d definitely be ok with it. Lot of fans think we need to replace fried with which is gonna be expensive and hard to do. What we definitely is depth. #4 #5 type pitchers on affordable contracts and this would have been a nice move
Braves more than likely will pivot back to Morton or sign Pivetta. Ive seen links to the Braves going after Flaherty, but AA will probably pull an out of the blue trade.
Braves won’t sign Pivetta-QO attached. Flaherty too expensive. Morton…ehh! I’m betting trade..hoping maybe Cease but probably Montgomery if the DBacks eat a good portion of $$$.
Yea I doubt Pivetta also, both cost and QO. I agree flaherty will be too expensive but I do think they are hoping Morton is a cheap option late in the offseason. I like Monty also but you’re right. Dbacks gonna have to eat 50% or more of that contract if I had to guess
I’d take Flaherty in a heartbeat. Montgomery makes the most sense, he drew the ire of the owner for whatever reason… I would prefer we stop trading the farm every season personally but don’t think Montgomery would take very much. And Morton brought back wouldn’t be bad either.
I’m interested to see how Michael Soroka does, he kinda got shelled in CHW. Trevor Williams for two years 14 million pretty good deal for any team. Wonder if he wanted to go back to nationals? Kyle Gibson didn’t do bad for the Cardinals last year for depth as mentioned
Will we get 2023 Williams or 2024? I’d take somewhere in between.
Incredible to find this sentence in the writeup:
“In 2023, the righty was an innings eater for the Nationals, providing them with 144 1/3 frames in 30 starts.”
That’s an innings eater? Fewer than 150 innings, and fewer than 5 innings per start?
How far we’ve fallen…
Solid.
I hadn’t seen his numbers for 2024, did Trevor find the sauce last year? His 2023 and 2024 numbers are night and day.
He tweaked his arsenal. The sweeper plays, baby!
I think it has to do with his role as well. They tried to convert him to a starting pitcher in ‘23, and put him back in the ‘pen in ‘24. In ‘22 he was also in the ‘pen and had an excellent year, albeit not as good as ‘24.
All 43 of his appearances the last 2 years were starts. What the heck are you talking about?
Yeah, 2022 he was relief but ‘24 he wasn’t, I was wrong. I was thinking of the wrong person. I know I’m not human, but I, even I can make a mistake.
Record it, because it’ll only happen this once, to make you humans feel normal.
He signed with the Nats in 2023 because they promised to give him regular starts while other teams thought of him only in relief. If anyone thinks their team could have used him as a reliever, that was not a possibility.
We will let it slide, this one time.
Totally wrong. He was a starter in both 2023 and 2024. 43 appearances, 43 starts. He was very effective in ’24, then injury ruined his season.
Williams wasn’t that bad at the start of 2023. through the end of May, he had 3.93 ERA (bad FIP – 5.15) through 55 innings and 11 starts. Wheels really fell off in the 2nd half (7.43 ERA / 7.01 FIP). That’s still nearly double his 2024 ERA over the first 11 starts, but entirely acceptable. The worrisome thing would whether he can sustain his early season numbers if he pitches more innings. OTOH, this is where depth (Parker/Herz, plus Lord / Lara / Cavalli) could pick up the slack if / when Williams turns into a pumpkin.
Well. he had a better year than Walker Buehler.
yeah, but Buehler got the final out in the World Series.
Casey – lol. And Williams is clearly better than Buehler, right?
Nats doin work
Dang, I wished the Cubs had brought him back.
His 2024 numbers are incredibly good, if he puts up numbers anywhere near last year, 14 million is a bargain.
He pitched fewer than 70 innings in his walk year. This is an overpay, a great example of the recency effect at play- where decision makers rely more heavily on recent performance than historical performance. I
Of course it isn’t. If anyone expected him to repeat his 2024 1/3 of a Cy Young performance in 2025, he’d be getting an AAV of $40+ million.
Since no one is expecting it, and since the combination of good and bad Trev for 2023-2024 summed to 2.5 bWAR, he’s getting the usual $8-9m per WAR, cut down some due to the expected age-related decline at 33 and 34. .
Really good pitcher and a steal! Surprised a contender didn’t get him
Taker – this is an emotion-driven overpay, hardly a steal. No contender would have been willing to give Williams 14 million based on 66 innings in an injury-derailed season. This is the sort of contract that will be used in behavioral economics textbooks!
Surely you’re trolling.
$7 million AAV for a guy who can give innings. This is not complicated for most of us. You seem to be troubled by a small deal.
Williams ,if healthy,should give the Nats a decent middle of the rotation option,while providing innings. He’s capable of an ERA in the range of 3.50 ,which is basically league average
That’s much better than league avg.
That’s what I meant. I’ve been impressed with him the last few years
Providing innings, I am not sure, but when healthy, he was very, very efficient with his new arsenal.
nice going Washington. small improvements at every step. really tough division on top.
Solid back-end rotation/swing man type. Nats rotation has some injury history to it so having a guy who can eat some innings cromulently is not a bad thing.
Every team needs innings-eaters, and if they have non-zero upside, all the better. Williams does. Nice pickup for the Nats at that price!
Bobbin. He pitched 66 innings in 2024. He’s not an innings eater, not at this stage of his career and not following an injury
Well, you are consistent anyway.
Your thoughts on the Severino deal please.
I delight in the entertainment you’re providing. Thanks.
Lindor’s Bodyguard- Severino has significant more upside than Williams and his career has followed a different trajectory. . Entered MLB at a younger age, was injured at a younger age, and he has been an all-star, etc. He pitched 116 more innings than Williams in 24 and received a QO. So the two contracts aren’t meaningfully comparable. If you’re asking whether I think the A’s contract is an emotional overpay analogous to the Nationals emotional overpay for Williams, the answer is no. As another commenter said below, Mike Rizzo must really love Williams. This was not a dispassionate decision by the Nats FO
I beg to differ, Agee. He was signed for 2 years in his last Nats contract for the precise purpose of eating innings in 2023 and 2024. He did a nice job eating 144+ innings in 2023, and then showed well in limited 2024 innings.
He is only 32 and looked great (just one run on six hits across 10 innings in two starts following a four-month stint on the IL) following his return from injury in 2024.
So after returning from a 4-month IL stint this September, he has been re-signed for an almost identical 2-year contract to eat innings in 2025 and 2026.
Good for Trevor. Another BC blunder. I am glad he made some money during his career
Who or what is BC?
Cherington. He basically DFAd several decent 4th year players a few years ago because of their arb projections. No superstars but players that would have been better than what they brought in. Williams was one of them
In fairness, Williams had one good year and one decent year for the Pirates, and the final two seasons he was just bad. At the time, it wasn’t that bad of a call. Hindsight makes it look worse.
Including a guy named Kyle something?!
I imagine Ben Cherington who let him leave Pittsburgh via free agency.
Second highest WAR in his walk year. Will be interesting to see how this works out. I wonder if there are any data on how pitchers who perform especially well in their walk years fare over the next 3 or 4 years ( compared, for example, to pitchers who don’t “overperform” in their walk years)
Mike Rizzo must love this guy…
Goose –
My thoughts exactly. This is not a dispassionate data driven signing. This is emotion. What at overpay.
I just don’t see how you can say $7 million a year is an overpay for a guy who has averaged 100 innings pitched the last two years. With what starting pitchers are commanding these days, even terrible ones, $7 million seems like a pretty low number especially for a team who has quite a few players under cost controlled contracts still for the next few years.
100 innings pitched doesn’t seem like a lot but we also barely see many starters crack 200 innings these days compared to what they used to go. It feels like most teams starting pitchers are anywhere in the 120 to 170 innings pitched range for the season now so if a guy can get you 100 innings the contract should be fine.
He’s not even beating inflation!
Nats are going to be an interesting team to watch next season
OK, “innings eater” isn’t just a guy who starts for you a bunch of times. It’s a guy who goes deep and keeps pressure off the bullpen, even if the ERA isn’t great. Think 180+ innings. Williams averaged less than 5 IP per start. Not an innings eater. I don’t dislike him, but words having meaning, even baseball jargon.
Seems to me the Nats are playing safe by signing Soroka for 9MM and Williams for 7MM AAV, hoping to trade one or both at trade deadline and then call up Cavelli. Fans might be expecting a more radical move like signing a FA long term for 16MM AAV in place of Soroka and Williams. Now they might go a 6SP rotation to limit the work load for a rotation not known for durability. Quite prudent moves that do the job and could turn out to be bargains if Soroka and/or Williams can be traded.
Your point is a good one, however, Cavalli hasn’t pitched in two years. I have to see it to believe it.
Cavalli pitched 8.1IP in 24, as rehab assignments possibly in ROK and A+. It’s just impossible to give up on him without at least half a season in the big league. I would love to see a Soroka trade and promotion of Cavalli. Just to see what they have to make the 2026 plan, which might be the year they breakout.
I am not giving up on him, but I have my doubts about whether he will ever pitch any kind of substantial innings in the majors. OK, he pitched 8.1 rehab innings last year, in between normal TJ recovery, the flu, a dead arm, and ultimately being shut down, I grant you that, but counting on this guy-not there yet. I say this not to disparage the player. It’s not his fault he got hurt and sick. Recoveries are hard.
Btw, I am totally with you, on 2026. Many people thought 2025 would be the breakout year. More likely it would be 2026 or even 2027.
Soroka is a set up man. He stinks as a starter but his stuff is electric as a one inning reliever.
There’s two things that never happened again. The Lerners never put the team up for sale again and no one ever signed a contract with the Washington Nationals for triple figure millions again.
Nice depth signing but the rotation is still probably the worst in the majors. I like their offense if crews and woods take a step forward but gore, Irvin,Parker, soroka and Williams is a really bad rotation.
Would be cool if they could for example sign flaherty and probably someone else too.
Speaking of innings eaters Patrick Corbin is available.
Have the Lerners learned anything?