The Washington Nationals claimed shortstop\u00a0Tsung-Che Cheng\u00a0off waivers from the New York Mets and designated left-handed pitcher\u00a0Konnor Pilkington\u00a0for assignment on Wednesday. Nationals President of Baseball Operations\u00a0Paul Toboni\u00a0made the announcement.<\/p>\n
Cheng, 24, spent five professional seasons in the Pittsburgh Pirates system after signing with them on July 2, 2019. He hit .251 with a .350 on-base percentage and a .385 slugging percentage and recorded 88 doubles, 21 triples, 35 home runs, 230 RBI, 112 stolen bases and 296 runs scored in 507 career Minor League games in the Pirates organization. He made his Major League debut in 2025, appearing in three games during the month of April. Cheng was claimed off waivers by the Tampa Bay Rays on Jan. 7 and by the New York Mets on Jan. 16.<\/p>\n
A native of Pingtung County, Taiwan, Cheng was considered the \u201cBest Defensive Infielder\u201d and had the \u201cBest Strike Zone Discipline\u201d in Pittsburgh\u2019s system entering the 2025 season, according to\u00a0Baseball America. He hit .207 with 12 doubles, three triples, one homer, 36 RBI, 48 walks, 20 stolen bases and 36 runs scored in 110 games between Triple-A Indianapolis and Single-A Bradenton last season.<\/p>\n
Washington\u2019s 40-man roster is now at 40 players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Nationals claimed shortstop\u00a0Tsung-Che Cheng\u00a0off waivers from the New York Mets and designated left-handed pitcher\u00a0Konnor Pilkington\u00a0for assignment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2398],"tags":[5,907,4,415,44330,414,71,4222],"class_list":["post-543868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-washington-nationals","tag-baseball","tag-masn","tag-mlb","tag-nationals","tag-nationals-news-release","tag-washington","tag-washington-nationals","tag-washingtonnationals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115977883853981663","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543868","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=543868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}