{"id":659277,"date":"2026-04-02T18:14:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T18:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659277\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T18:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T18:14:16","slug":"nationals-part-ways-with-former-cubs-top-10-mlb-first-base-prospect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659277\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationals part ways with former Cubs top-10 MLB first base prospect"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Nationals<\/a> are making a change at first base, opening the door for more playing time at first base for prospect Abimelec Ortiz.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Per Bobby Blanco of MASNsports.com<\/a>, the NL East club released first baseman Matt Mervis on Thursday. Mervis played just one game with Washington’s Triple-A affiliate before his release.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He is now free to sign with any club that shows interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Duke University product was ranked as the No. 6 first base prospect by MLB Pipeline<\/a> ahead of the 2024 season. That same year, he opened the season at Triple-A Iowa in the Chicago Cubs<\/a> organization, despite making his Major League debut in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Terrance Gore’s son honors dad with perfect first pitch<\/a><\/p>\n

Chicago traded Mervis to the Miami Marlins<\/a> two winters ago, but he struggled to gain momentum at the plate in his 47 games with the club, hitting seven home runs but striking out in an absurd 37.3% of his plate appearances.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Strikeouts have been an issue his past few trips through Triple-A, however, and they\u2019ve been an insurmountable obstacle for Mervis in the majors,” Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors<\/a> wrote Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mervis’ grandmother was born in Israel, and he represented her heritage at the past two World Baseball Classics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Nationals are making a change at first base, opening the door for more playing time at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2399],"tags":[5,138,24,4245,161,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-659277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-chicagocubs","12":"tag-cubs","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116336477239253264","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659277","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=659277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}