{"id":534125,"date":"2026-01-23T08:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T08:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/534125\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T08:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T08:47:09","slug":"nationals-designate-riley-adams-for-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/534125\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationals Designate Riley Adams For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Nationals announced that catcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/adamsri03.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Riley Adams<\/a> has been designated for assignment. That\u2019s the corresponding move for their claim of right-hander <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/varlagu01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Gus Varland<\/a>, which was <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2026\/01\/nationals-claim-gus-varland-waivers-dbacks.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">previously reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Adams, 30 in June, has been with the Nats for the past four-plus years. Originally drafted by the Blue Jays, he came to Washington in <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2021\/07\/nationals-trade-brad-hand-blue-jays.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the 2021 deadline deal<\/a> which sent lefty <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/handbr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Brad Hand<\/a> to Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>He was mostly an up-and-down guy through the end of 2024, never appearing in more than 48 games in any individual campaign. He exhausted his final option in 2024 but stuck on the roster through the 2025 season. Overall, he has appeared in 263 big league games with 849 plate appearances. He has shown a bit of pop by hitting 21 home runs but also struck out at a 32.5% clip. He has a .211\/.287\/.354 line and 78 wRC+. Outlets such as FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus and Statcast have all graded him as a poor defender.<\/p>\n<p>The Nats acquired catcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/fordha01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Harry Ford<\/a> from the Mariners in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/ferrejo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jose A. Ferrer<\/a> deal last month. Ford should share the bulk of the big league playing time behind the plate with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/ruizke01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Keibert Ruiz<\/a>. Even if Ford needs more time in the minors, the Nats also have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/milladr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Drew Millas<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gaspemi01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mickey Gasper<\/a> on the 40-man roster. Millas and Gasper have options, so perhaps that led to Adams getting squeezed out.<\/p>\n<p>Back in November, Adams and the Nationals avoided arbitration by agreeing to a split deal which would pay him $1MM in the majors and $500K in the minors. Since his service time is at least three years but below five, he would have the right to reject an outright assignment but would have to walk away from that money in exercising that right. It seems there\u2019s a decent chance he\u2019ll end up sticking with the Nats as non-roster depth after clearing waivers.<\/p>\n<p>Photo courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nationals announced that catcher Riley Adams has been designated for assignment. That\u2019s the corresponding move for their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,910],"class_list":["post-534125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-riley-adams"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115943548727255102","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}