White Sox Trade Curtis Mead To Nationals For Boston Smith
The White Sox have acquired catcher Boston Smith from the Nationals for infielder Curtis Mead, both teams have announced. Mead was designated for assignment earlier this week after falling short of an Opening Day roster spot. Smith was a sixth-round pick in the 2025 draft. To open up a 40-man roster spot for Mead, Washington designated lefty Jake Eder for assignment.
A former top prospect with the Rays, Mead spent the final two months of 2025 with the White Sox after coming over in the Adrian Houser trade. He scuffled to a 64 wRC+ in 41 games with the club. Mead hit .233 with a couple of home runs in 10 spring games as he battled for a big-league job. He lost out on the final bench spot to outfielder Tristan Peters.
Mead signed with the Phillies as a minor league free agent in 2018. He was dealt to the Rays straight up for future All-Star Cristopher Sanchez the following year. Mead mashed in the minors in his first full season in the Tampa Bay organization, delivering a 142 wRC+ across three levels in 2021. He continued to pound minor league pitching over the next two seasons.
MLB Pipeline ranked Mead as the Rays’ No. 2 prospect in 2023, behind only right-hander Taj Bradley. He debuted with the club that year, holding his own as a 22-year-old with a .253/.326/.349 slash line in 92 plate appearances. Despite the respectable debut, Mead was limited to part-time work with the Rays in 2024 and 2025. His production was underwhelming at the plate, though he did provide some defensive versatility. Mead spent time at first base, second base, and third base, while also making an appearance at shortstop.
Washington has been active in the infield market over the past week. The club acquired Jorbit Vivas and Zack Short from the Yankees in separate deals. Mead will now join the list. It’s unclear whether he’ll be with the big-league club or head to the minors. Chicago was more in need of an outfielder to fill out the roster following the Brooks Baldwin injury, but the Nats are thinner on the dirt.
Smith was selected with the No. 171 overall pick out of Wright State. The backstop popped 26 home runs in his final season with the Raiders. The 23-year-old has yet to suit up in the minors. Chicago has a pair of talented young catchers on the big-league squad in Kyle Teel and Edgar Quero. Veteran Reese McGuire is currently backing up Quero as Teel deals with a hamstring strain suffered in the World Baseball Classic.
Eder was signed by the Marlins as an undrafted free agent in 2020. He was traded to the White Sox for Jake Burger at the 2023 trade deadline. After a handful of uninspiring seasons in the minors with Chicago, he was sent to the Angels for cash in March 2025. Eder made eight appearances for the big-league club, pitching to a 4.91 ERA across 18 1/3 innings. The lefty found his way to the Nationals in a trade that sent relievers Andrew Chafin and Luis García back to the Angels. Eder was tagged for seven earned runs over seven minor league innings with Washington.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas and Peter Aiken, Imagn Images
Poll: Who Will Win The NL East?
With the first game of the 2026 season already in the rearview mirror, the offseason is now complete for MLB’s 30 teams. Until the playoffs begin, teams will be focused on a smaller goal: winning their division. In the run-up to the start of the season, we have been conducting a series of polls to gauge who MLBTR readers believe is the favorite in each division. The Blue Jays came out on top in the AL East, and the Tigers did the same in our poll on the AL Central, and the Mariners were predicted to win the AL West. In the NL West, the Dodgers predictably came out on top, while the the Cubs won a plurality (42%) of the votes in the NL Central. Today, we’ll round out this series of polls with a look at the NL East. All teams are listed in order of their 2025 regular season record:
Philadelphia Phillies (96-66)
The Phillies won the NL East in dominant fashion last year, but repeating that feat figures to be a much taller order in 2026. That’s because Philadelphia’s biggest offseason moves were focused on the same core that they’ve used for the last several years. Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto re-signed. Cristopher Sanchez and Jesus Luzardo signed extensions. But none of that meaningfully pushes the ball forward relative to 2025. There were some external additions of note, like Adolis Garcia and Brad Keller, but the Phillies seem very comfortable banking on youngsters like Justin Crawford and Andrew Painter to pick up the slack left by departing All-Stars Ranger Suarez and Nick Castellanos. Will that be enough to keep them at the top of the NL East?
New York Mets (83-79)
The Mets completely overhauled their entire organization this offseason after missing the playoffs by a hair in 2025. Pete Alonso, Edwin Diaz, Brandon Nimmo, Starling Marte, and Jeff McNeil (among others) are gone. Marcus Semien, Jorge Polanco, Bo Bichette, Devin Williams and Luis Robert Jr. (among others) have arrived to replace them. The result is a completely overhauled lineup that offers the potential for a very impressive offense on paper but comes with real defensive questions as Bichette and Polanco are set to be tasked with learning new positions. With that said, the team’s biggest addition of the winter is surely Freddy Peralta, who will lead a rotation that also stands to get a full season from Nolan McLean this year. It was an unorthodox retool of the roster in Queens this offseason, but this year’s team built around Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor certainly has a chance to be a lot stronger than the one they leaned on last season.
Miami Marlins (79-83)
The Marlins surprised baseball fans in 2025 by nearly making it all the way back to .500, but that wasn’t enough to convince president of baseball operations Peter Bendix to call off the rebuild early. Edward Cabrera and Ryan Weathers were shipped out the door, while the team’s additions were fairly modest. Owen Caissie joined the team as part of the Cabrera trade return and could be a 30-homer bat in right field, mirroring 2025 All-Star Kyle Stowers in left once the latter is healthy, but a team relying on Christopher Morel at first base and Chris Paddack to be your big free agent additions to the lineup and rotation doesn’t offer much reason for optimism about the club’s division chances. Pete Fairbanks was a strong addition to the bullpen, but Miami will need a big rebound from Sandy Alcantara plus significant steps forward from youngsters like Connor Norby, Max Meyer, and Agustin Ramirez if they’re going to compete for the East.
Atlanta Braves (76-86)
No team in baseball had a more disappointing season last year than the Braves. Virtually everything went wrong in Atlanta last season, as the entire roster struggled with injuries and under-performance outside of a few bright spots like Drake Baldwin and Matt Olson. The good news for Atlanta is, they still have a very talented core on paper. Ronald Acuna Jr. is a superstar with an MVP award on his mantle. Chris Sale is a future Hall of Famer. Spencer Strider and Austin Riley are certainly capable of bouncing back. Additions like Robert Suarez and Mike Yastrzemski should be helpful, though Ha-Seong Kim is starting the season on the injured list after signing on to be their starting shortstop. The bones of a great team are certainly present, but it’s anyone’s guess whether Atlanta can perform up to that level this year.
Washington Nationals (66-96)
The Nationals enter 2026 with little reason for hope in the short-term. James Wood looks like a budding superstar, but MacKenzie Gore has been traded and CJ Abrams could follow suit later this year. Offseason additions like Zack Littell and Miles Mikolas in the rotation should help to eat innings but neither offers substantial upside. Fans in D.C. could hope for big years from players like Wood, Abrams, Cade Cavalli and Brady House, but even with those things going right, the best case scenario would be convincing newly-minted president of baseball operations Paul Toboni to try and make a more substantial effort to compete next year. It would take a minor miracle to get the Nationals into the postseason for 2026, much less as the champions of the NL East.
How do MLBTR readers think the NL East will play out this year? Will the Phillies hang on to win it again despite running it back? Will the Mets’ massive retool work out? Or will a team like the Marlins or Braves surprise and take the crown for themselves? Have your say in the poll below:
Who will win the NL East in 2026?
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Philadelphia Phillies 40% (2,316)
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New York Mets 33% (1,894)
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Atlanta Braves 21% (1,198)
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Washington Nationals 4% (212)
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Miami Marlins 3% (152)
Total votes: 5,772
MLBTR Podcast: The PCA and Sanchez Extensions, And Prospect Promotions And Reassignments
The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- The extension between the Cubs and Pete Crow-Armstrong (recorded prior to the numbers being reported) (2:20)
- The extension between the Phillies and Cristopher Sánchez (7:00)
- The Braves losing Spencer Strider to the injured list (14:00)
- Is there a trend of starting pitcher prospects being used in major league bullpens? (18:15)
- The Nationals optioning Dylan Crews and Harry Ford, with Josiah Gray landing on the 60-day IL (23:35)
- Carson Benge making the Mets‘ Opening Day roster (30:30)
- JJ Wetherholt making the Cardinals‘ Opening Day roster (35:40)
- The Pirates not breaking camp with Konnor Griffin (39:15)
- The Guardians not breaking camp with Travis Bazzana (44:40)
- The Blue Jays starting the season with José Berríos and Trey Yesavage on the injured list (49:20)
- The Marlins optioning Braxton Garrett (55:55)
Check out our past episodes!
- Banged-Up Reds And Braves, Kevin McGonigle, And Spring Breakouts – listen here
- Jesús Luzardo’s Extension, Atlanta’s Depth, And Zack Littell – listen here
- Max Scherzer, The Red Sox’ Lineup, Spring Extension Candidates, And More! – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
Photo courtesy of Kyle Ross, Imagn Images
Yankees Trade Zack Short To Nationals
The Yankees have traded infielder Zack Short to the Nationals in exchange for cash, per announcements from both clubs. Short, who’d been a non-roster invitee to Yankees camp, will head to Triple-A Rochester with his new organization for the time being.
Short, 30, signed a minor league deal with New York back in December and hit .278/.480/.333 in 25 spring plate appearances. He’s played in parts of four major league seasons between the Tigers, Mets, Red Sox, Braves and Astros, tallying a total of 594 plate appearances. In that time, he’s slashed .172/.271/.296 with 15 homers, 10 steals, a stout 11.8% walk rate and a bloated 29% strikeout rate.
The Nationals are relatively thin on infield depth, and Short has experience at second base, shortstop and third base in the majors — more than 300 innings at each position (including 784 at shortstop). He hasn’t posted especially strong defensive grades, but he’s a versatile right-handed bat with modest pop and solid on-base skills. His low batting averages persist even in Triple-A, where he’s batted just .216 in six seasons, but he also sports a .353 on-base percentage in that time.
Looking around the Nationals’ infield, CJ Abrams is the lone established player. Former first-round pick Brady House will get another look at third base, while Nasim Nunez and Luis Garcia Jr. look like options at second base and first base. Infielder Jorbit Vivas also came over from the Nats in a more notable trade and is out of minor league options, so he’ll mix in to some extent, as will righty-swinging first baseman Andres Chaparro.
Nationals Return Rule 5 Pick Griff McGarry To Phillies
March 24th: The Phillies announced that McGarry is back in the organization and has been assigned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley.
March 22nd: The Nationals announced today that they’ve designated right-hander Griff McGarry for assignment. The move clears a spot for Jorbit Vivas on the 40-man roster, whose previously reported acquisition from the Yankees is now official. McGarry was the Nationals’ Rule 5 draft pick back in December and now will be available to any of the league’s other clubs who are willing to claim him with Rule 5 stipulations attached. If he goes unclaimed, he must be offered back to the Phillies for $50K. If the Phillies pass on reacquiring McGarry, he can be outrighted off the roster into the Nationals’ farm system.
McGarry, 26, was a fifth-round pick by the Phillies back in 2021 and got some top-100 prospect attention earlier in his career. That was before his career took a turn for the worse in 2023, when he posted an ugly 6.00 ERA in 17 starts thanks to lackluster command. Those command issues caused the organization to move McGarry to the bullpen for the 2024 season, but his already-high 18.5% walk rate from 2023 ballooned to a whopping 24.0% when he moved into a relief role. That led the Phillies to return the right-hander to the rotation for 2025, and he turned in decent numbers across 21 starts, most of which were at the Double-A level. He still walked too many batters, with 13.9% of his opponents getting a free pass, but he managed to make up for that elevated walk rate with a sensational 35.1% strikeout rate.
That improvement was enough for the Nationals to roll the dice on McGarry back in December, but his signature command issues once again resurfaced during Spring Training. While he managed a decent 3.18 ERA in 5 2/3 innings of work, he walked (five) nearly as many batters as he struck out (six) in that time, leaving him with an 18.5% walk rate that would be difficult to justify carrying on a big league roster even for a rebuilding club. With optionable youngsters like Brad Lord and Ken Waldichuk capable of offering multi-inning relief with considerable upside and no Rule 5 restrictions, it’s not necessarily a surprising decision that the Nationals would opt for those arms rather than McGarry as they fill out their roster.
Should he go unclaimed on waivers, his upside is still considerable enough that it would be a surprise if the Phillies didn’t jump at the opportunity to reacquire him and continue his development throughout the 2026 campaign. Of course, it’s not impossible that he could be claimed; after all, McGarry was just the third-overall selection in the draft, meaning a number of teams later in the draft may well have considered drafting him themselves if he had fallen to them. Of course, it’s also a lot easier to draft a Rule 5 pick in December than it is to actually carry that player on their roster come March, so McGarry’s trip through the waiver wire will be one to watch over the coming days.
Josiah Gray Diagnosed With Flexor Strain
Nationals right-hander Josiah Gray has been diagnosed with a flexor strain, the team announced. He has been placed on the 60-day injured list and will miss at least the first two months of the season. That opens a 40-man roster spot for lefty reliever Cionel Pérez, whose contract has officially been selected. Washington also placed righty reliever Paxton Schultz on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to March 22, with elbow inflammation.
It’s a tough blow for Gray, as he’d seemingly just gotten healthy after undergoing Tommy John surgery two years ago. Gray missed the entire ’25 season rehabbing from the operation, which took place the previous July. The ligament damage was ominously preceded by a flexor strain diagnosis three months earlier.
The Nats hadn’t provided any indication that Gray was dealing with renewed elbow discomfort. His most recent Spring Training appearance came on March 7, though it’s common for teams to give pitchers additional rest in camp when they’re coming off a significant injury. The Nationals announced last week that Gray had been optioned and would begin the season in Triple-A. That’ll be rescinded with the flexor sending him to the major league injured list instead.
Manager Blake Butera will presumably provide some kind of update on Gray’s health outlook in the coming days. It’s not clear whether another procedure is a possible outcome, though any significant arm injury this close to a previous surgery is disheartening. Gray is making a $1.35MM salary this season and under arbitration control through 2027.
Nationals To Select Cionel Pérez
Left-handed reliever Cionel Pérez has been informed that he’s made the Nationals’ Opening Day roster, reports Francys Romero of BeisbolFR.com. Pérez is in camp as a non-roster invitee, so the Nats will need to open a 40-man roster spot in order to formally add him to the club.
Pérez, 29, signed a minor league deal back in February and has had a terrific spring. The veteran southpaw has pitched six innings and held opponents scoreless on only two hits and a walk with five strikeouts. He’s kept a hearty 53.3% of batted balls against him on the ground and sat 95.7 mph with his four-seamer and 95.5 mph with his sinker.
Originally signed by the Astros after defecting from Cuba, Pérez struggled through several seasons in Houston and Cincinnati before breaking out with the Orioles in 2022. A then-26-year-old Pérez fired 57 2/3 innings with a pristine 1.40 ERA. For three seasons, Pérez was a largely reliable arm in Baltimore, compiling 164 2/3 innings with a 3.12 ERA, 57 holds and six saves.
In 2025, Pérez stumbled badly out of the gate and never managed to find his footing. He opened the season with 21 2/3 innings of 8.31 ERA ball, including five runs in his final appearance, before being designated for assignment. He went unclaimed on waivers and spent the rest of the season in Triple-A Norfolk, where he posted a 6.65 ERA in 22 1/3 innings.
Pérez’s undoing last season was a sudden erosion of his already sub-par command. Even during his three quality seasons with the O’s, he walked 10-11% of his opponents. In 2025, he walked more than 16% of the batters he faced both in the majors and in Triple-A. He also lost a mile per hour off his four-seamer and a half-mile off his sinker.
Pérez will reportedly earn $1.9MM on his deal now that he’s made the roster. He can pick up another $700K worth of incentives. He has just under five years of big league service, meaning if he gets back on track, the Nats can control him through 2027 via arbitration. Pérez instantly becomes the most experienced reliever in the rebuilding Nationals’ bullpen and could even find himself in high-leverage spots, given the team’s lack of established relievers.
Nationals To Acquire Jorbit Vivas
The Nationals are acquiring infielder Jorbit Vivas from the Yankees, according to a report from Andrew Golden of The Baltimore Banner. Pitching prospect Sean Paul Linan is headed back to New York in exchange for Vivas’s services.
Vivas, 25, made his big league debut with the Yankees last year. He hit .161/.266/.250 for the club across 66 plate appearances last year while splitting time between second and third base in a bench role for the club, though there’s reason to believe he’s a good bit better than that small sample might suggest. His xwOBA of .304 is much closer to league average, and a lackluster .190 BABIP surely limited his production in the majors last year. He hit quite well for the Yankees when at Triple-A last season as well, with a .270/.389/.364 (110 wRC+) line in 100 games with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
The youngster is now headed to the Nationals, where he should have a much better opportunity to get playing time at the big league level. With Amed Rosario, Jose Caballero, Ryan McMahon, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. all on the roster, Anthony Volpe set to return from the injured list early in the year, and players like Oswaldo Cabrera and Paul DeJong at Triple-A, it seems likely that Vivas would have wound up buried on the Yankees’ infield depth chart this year. There’s no such fear with the Nationals, who are in the midst of a rebuild and will be relying on Brady House, Nasim Nunez, and Jose Tena to cover second and third base with CJ Abrams locking down shortstop.
In return for Vivas’s services, the Yankees pick up the right-handed Linan. The 21-year-old Colombia native signed with the Dodgers as an amateur back in 2022 and was acquired by the Nationals as part of the Alex Call deal at last year’s trade deadline. Linan had an up-and-down season with the Dodgers and Nationals in the minors last year, with a 3.03 ERA across three levels of the minors, but he finished well enough with five innings of one-run ball in the Arizona Fall League. Linan seems likely to begin the 2022 season at Double-A for the Yankees and has served mostly as a starter throughout his career, but the 27th-ranked prospect in the Nationals’ farm per MLB Pipeline lacks a second standout offering to pair with his elite changeup and struggled with control in brief looks at both Triple-A and the AFL. That could portend a move to relief in Linan’s future, which might be able to help him advance to the upper levels of the minors more quickly.
Nationals Release Drew Smith
The Nationals announced that right-hander Drew Smith has been released. Smith signed a minor league deal last month, and the Nats had to make a decision by this weekend about including the righty on the 40-man roster, or else Smith could trigger the first of three built-in opt-out dates within his contract.
Smith hasn’t pitched in the majors or minors since June 2024, as a UCL surgery kept the veteran reliever in rehab and recovery mode for the entirety of the 2025 season. Back in November, the Mets declined their $2MM club option on Smith’s services for next year, sending him to free agency for the second straight winter. The minor league deal with Washington seemed to provide a good opportunity for Smith given the unsettled state of the Nats’ bullpen, and 5 1/3 scoreless innings this spring seemed to be boost for Smith’s bid for a roster spot.
Instead, the Nationals have decided to move on from the 32-year-old. It could be that the Nationals wanted to focus more on younger arms, or the timing of the opt-out clause forced the Nats into a decision they didn’t yet want to make about Smith’s status. As is sometimes the case with the Article XX(B) deadline, Smith could possibly re-sign with Washington on a fresh minors deal in a few days, with today’s release just a means to sidestep the first opt-out deadline and give the team a little more time to evaluate their options.
If Smith does test the market, he might well find some interest given his past track record with the Mets. Smith posted a 3.48 ERA, 24.5% strikeout rate, and 9.3% walk rate for New York over 196 1/3 innings from 2018-24. That walk rate spiked upward in 2023-24 but his 29.1K% in 2024 was also a career best, and Smith has pretty evenly solid numbers against both right-handed and left-handed batters over his career.
Nationals Option Dylan Crews
The Nationals announced that outfielder Dylan Crews has been optioned to Triple-A Rochester. That seems to set them up to have an Opening Day outfield mix consisting of James Wood, Jacob Young and Daylen Lile, perhaps with Joey Wiemer and/or Christian Franklin on the bench.
Crews, now 24, was once one of the top prospects in the league. The Nats took him with the second overall pick in the 2023 draft. He shot through the minors and was up in the big leagues by August of 2024, barely a year after being drafted. At that time, he was considered one of the five to ten best prospects in the whole league.
The shine has come off a bit since then as he hasn’t shown success at the major league level yet. He missed about three months of the 2025 season due to an oblique strain. To this point, he has 454 big league plate appearances with a .211/.282/.352 line. His defense has been good and he has already swiped 29 bags but the Nats clearly expected more offensively. Crews had a monster .380/.498/.689 line for Louisiana State University and then hit .275/.351/.455 in the minors before his 2024 call-up.
Despite his lack of major league success, it was expected that he would get some runway in 2026. The Nats are rebuilding and don’t plan to contend soon, as evidenced by their offseason deals of MacKenzie Gore and Jose A. Ferrer. But Crews put up an awful .103/.206/.103 line in spring training this year, striking out in 11 of his 34 plate appearances, a 32.4% clip.
It’s possible the demotion is about playing time, as Crews would ideally be getting regular reps to get back on track after his injury-marred 2025. At the big league level, Wood is one of the best players on the club and will certainly be out there. Young doesn’t hit much but is an elite defensive center fielder. Lile debuted last year and was rough on defense but hit .299/.347/.498.
Wiemer is a good fit as a fourth outfielder since he’s a strong defender and his right-handed bat could help him form a platoon with the lefty-swinging Lile. Franklin hasn’t yet made his major league debut but he’s considered a well-rounded player who is decent at just about everything, so he could slot into the mix in various ways if he makes the team, either as a defensive replacement, pinch hitter or pinch runner. Both Wiemer and Franklin are optionable, so it’s possible one of them ends up getting sent down in the coming days but the Nats also might roster five outfielders.
Jamming Crews into that mix would have perhaps meant taking a bit of playing time away from everyone, so the Nats have decided it best to let Crews rediscover himself at the Triple-A level. He will join Robert Hassell III in that regard. Hassell is also a former first round pick who has struggled at the major league level. He was optioned to the minors earlier this week.
The move could have implications for Crews, depending on how much time he ultimately spends down on the farm. He currently has one year and 35 days of service time. If he stayed up in the majors, he would be under club control through the 2030 season. If he spends about two months or more on optional assignment, he wouldn’t get to the two-year mark in 2026, therefore pushing his path to free agency by a year. His path to arbitration could also be impacted.
Those will be concerns to be worked out in the future. For now, the Nats and Crews need to find a way for him to reach his potential and establish himself as a major leaguer. As mentioned, the Nats don’t really hope to be good in 2026 but their future chances will improve if young players like Crews can take steps forward.
Photo courtesy of Geoff Burke, Imagn Images