{"id":543390,"date":"2026-01-29T02:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T02:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/543390\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T02:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T02:43:11","slug":"nationals-outright-riley-adams-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/543390\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationals Outright Riley Adams &#8211; MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Nationals sent catcher\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/adamsri03.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-28_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Riley Adams<\/a> outright to Triple-A Rochester, according to the MLB.com <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/player\/riley-adams-656180\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">transaction tracker<\/a>. Washington designated him for assignment last week when they claimed reliever\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/varlagu01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-28_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Gus Varland<\/a>\u00a0from Arizona. The Nats announced that Adams has accepted the minor league assignment.<\/p>\n<p>Adams has between three and four years of MLB service time. That gave him the right to elect free agency in lieu of an outright assignment but meant he\u2019d have forfeited his salary to do so. Adams and the Nats agreed to a split contract in November to avoid arbitration. That pays him at a $1MM rate for time in the big leagues and $500K for his minor league work. It was unlikely that Adams would pass on that guaranteed half-million dollars when he\u2019d be limited to minor league offers as a free agent.<\/p>\n<p>Now that he\u2019s staying in the organization, Adams will provide non-roster depth behind the plate. The 29-year-old is a .211\/.287\/.354 hitter in 263 MLB games spanning five seasons. Almost all of it has come in Washington, as the Nats acquired him from the Blue Jays 12 games into his rookie season. Adams has above-average power but strikes out far too often to be a productive hitter. Defensive metrics haven\u2019t been keen on his receiving work, though he does have a strong arm and cut down 28.8% of attempted base stealers last year.<\/p>\n<p>Washington acquired rookie catcher\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/fordha01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-28_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Harry Ford<\/a> in the trade sending hard-throwing reliever\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/ferrejo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-28_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jose A. Ferrer<\/a> to Seattle. Ford should get run as Blake Butera\u2019s primary catcher. Former top prospect\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/ruizke01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-28_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Keibert Ruiz<\/a> hasn\u2019t lived up to expectations and now looks ticketed for a backup job.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/milladr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-28_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Drew Millas<\/a> and catcher\/utility player\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gaspemi01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-28_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mickey Gasper<\/a> are on the 40-man roster. The Nationals also reunited with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/barretr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-28_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tres Barrera<\/a> on a minor league deal that includes a non-roster invite to Spring Training last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nationals sent catcher\u00a0Riley Adams outright to Triple-A Rochester, according to the MLB.com transaction tracker. Washington designated him&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,910],"class_list":["post-543390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-riley-adams"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115976090877480463","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543390","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=543390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543390\/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=543390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}