{"id":617046,"date":"2026-03-10T15:54:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T15:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/617046\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T15:54:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T15:54:19","slug":"nationals-designate-richard-lovelady-for-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/617046\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationals Designate Richard Lovelady For Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nationals have designated left-handed reliever Richard Lovelady<\/a> for assignment, per a club announcement. His roster spot goes to righty Zack Littell<\/a>, whose previously reported one-year deal with the Nats<\/a> is now official.<\/p>\n

Washington claimed Lovelady off waivers from the Mets back on Jan. 29. He\u2019d signed a split major league deal with the Mets back in October, which the Mets hoped would help him to pass through waivers so he could be stashed in Syracuse as Triple-A depth. That didn\u2019t work out, at least not on their initial attempt, as the Nats quickly scooped him up. Lovelady will now either be traded within the next five days or placed back on waivers, which are a 48-hour process. His DFA will be resolved within a week\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

Lovelady has had a solid showing with the Nats so far in camp. He\u2019s allowed a run on four hits and three walks in four innings while fanning seven batters. He allowed 11 runs in 11 2\/3 big league innings between the Blue Jays and Mets in 2025 but posted a a terrific 1.66 ERA with a 26.3% strikeout rate, 8.6% walk rate and 52.6% ground-ball rate in 38 Triple-A frames.<\/p>\n

Lovelady is no stranger to posting strong numbers in the upper minors but running into some MLB struggles. He\u2019s logged 111 MLB frames in his career and posted a 5.35 ERA but thrived with a 2.61 ERA, 26.9% strikeout rate and 7% walk rate in 175 2\/3 Triple-A innings across parts of seven seasons. Although Lovelady hasn\u2019t had consistent success in the majors, he did log a solid 4.25 ERA with quality strikeout, walk and grounder rates in 78 1\/3 big league frames from 2022-24.<\/p>\n

Since he\u2019s out of minor league options, Lovelady couldn\u2019t simply be sent back to Triple-A. The Nats will hope he clears waivers and can be stashed in the upper minors within their system, just as the Mets tried to do. He cleared waivers on several occasions last year but was also selected to a major league roster five different times between Toronto and New York, including that major league deal with the Mets in October. He\u2019s ping-ponged on and off MLB rosters of the Royals, A\u2019s, Cubs, Jays and Mets dating back to 2022, so it\u2019s certainly possible another club with a need for some bullpen depth takes a low-cost flier via waivers or a cash swap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nationals have designated left-handed reliever Richard Lovelady for assignment, per a club announcement. His roster spot goes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,24906],"class_list":{"0":"post-617046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-richard-lovelady"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116205695373060356","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617046","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=617046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}