Nationals Find Their Veteran Starter in Trevor Williams

Trevor Williams
Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports

A week ago at the Winter Meetings, Nationals manager Dave Martinez told reporters that the team was looking to add a veteran starting pitcher. On Friday, MASN’s Mark Zuckerman reported that Washington did just that, making its biggest move of the offseason by signing free agent Trevor Williams. The two-year, $13 million commitment, per The Athletic’s Stephen J. Nesbitt, represents the team’s third-biggest contractual commitment, behind the long-term deals of Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin.

Williams played a significant role with the Mets in 2022, starting nine games while Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer were on the IL earlier in the season and making 21 relief appearances. Given New York’s glut of solid right-handed relief arms, he didn’t make the roster for the Wild Card Series against the Padres. Had he been on the Nationals in 2022, his 0.6 WAR would have been third on the staff, and his 3.21 ERA and 3.88 FIP would have been fourth (among pitchers who threw at least 25 innings).

Williams will immediately become the most reliable arm in Washington’s starting rotation. At Federal Baseball, Patrick Reddington noted that he had a 1.80 ERA against the Nationals in 2022, so if nothing else, they’ve co-opted a former tormenter.

Trevor Williams – 2022 Stats & 2023 Steamer Projection
Season Age W L G GS IP K% BB% LOB% ERA FIP WAR
2022 30 3 5 30 9 89.2 22.6 6.2 82.3 3.21 3.88 0.6
2023 31 7 9 41 21 132 17.9 7.2% 70.3 4.79 4.73 0.8

Williams has spent six full seasons in the majors, serving as a full-time starter for the Pirates from 2017 until 2020. He had a career year in 2018, winning 14 games with a 3.11 ERA, before struggling enough in ’19 and ’20 to be designated for assignment. He signed with the Cubs before the 2021 season and spent time in their pitching lab, hoping to correct mechanical problems that started with a 2019 oblique injury.

Although his ERA didn’t reflect it at the time, Williams pitched much better in 2021, posting a career-high strikeout rate and knocking nearly two runs off his 2020 FIP. After 12 starts, the Cubs traded him and headliner Javier Báez to the Mets for Pete Crow-Armstrong at the deadline. He continued to pitch well in three starts and seven relief appearances for the Mets, which was finally reflected in his 3.06 ERA.

Williams was a somewhat different pitcher in 2021 and ’22. He changed his pitch mix a bit, throwing more four-seamers and fewer sliders, but the big difference was in his release point:

In 2021, Williams started releasing the ball farther to the right-hand side of the rubber and significantly lower, then dropped it even more in 2022. The results are almost exactly what you’d expect from such a change. His flatter four-seamer played up, he posted a career high 13.8% popup rate, and he developed the biggest platoon splits of his career. In 2022 he allowed a .376 wOBA to lefties and a .274 wOBA to righties, compared to career marks of .337 and .318. Working out of the bullpen also allowed him to face significantly more righties than lefties for just the second time in his career. Here’s a look at his arm angle at release in 2020 and in ’22:

Assuming Williams will be starting for the Nationals, he won’t be able to dodge as many lefties as he did last year, which will likely hurt his performance. On the bright side, he hasn’t faced a huge times-through-the-order penalty over the course of his career. After two consecutive years with 3.88 FIP, it seems reasonable to expect that his mechanical changes will continue to pay dividends, even if he is due for some regression.

Nationals Starters – 2023 ZiPS Projections
Player IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 BB% K% ERA+ FIP WAR
Stephen Strasburg 110.7 8.9 2.8 1.1 7.6 23.6 109 3.79 2
MacKenzie Gore 86.3 9.4 4 1 10.1 23.9 98 4.03 1.2
Cade Cavalli 103 9 4.1 1 10.5 23.1 95 4.14 1.3
Josiah Gray 129 9.2 3.3 1.6 8.8 24.1 89 4.68 1.2
Joan Adon 102.3 7.7 4 1.2 10.0 18.9 80 4.81 0.5
Patrick Corbin 137.3 7.7 3.1 1.6 7.9 19.3 80 4.93 0.6

In the sense that no one knows what to expect from any of Washington’s projected starters, Williams’ ability to provide innings as both a starter and a reliever makes him a natural fit. But given that the only Nationals starter projected by ZiPS for an ERA+ above 100 has appeared in a total of eight games in the last three years, adding Williams to the pitching staff is a bit like trying to fill a bathtub with a plant mister.

Strasburg had thoracic outlet surgery in 2021, and he returned to the IL with a stress reaction of the ribs after one start in 2022. General manager Mike Rizzo told reporters in October that Strasburg’s status was “still a little bit of a mystery.” At the Winter Meetings two months later, he revealed that Strasburg had not yet begun throwing. I highly recommend this Washington Post article by Jesse Dougherty about Strasburg’s struggle to return to action.

The Nationals have confirmed that Corbin will be in the rotation in 2023. The less said about that, the better. Adon found himself on pace for 20 losses midway through the season but was optioned to Triple-A Rochester in June.

The starting rotation includes three young starters with real upside in Gray, Cavalli, and Gore. Eric Longenhagen ranked Cavalli as Washington’s top prospect in July. He’s got a big arm, great stuff, and command issues. He made just one big league start in 2022 and was shut down in September due to shoulder soreness that required a cortisone shot. Nonetheless, Martinez announced at the Winter Meetings that Cavalli was penciled into next year’s rotation

Gore’s career has been documented extensively here at FanGraphs, so much so that multiple articles have referred to it as a saga. The 2022 version of Gore started off strongly enough to thrust him into the early Rookie of the Year discussion, but the left-hander’s velocity and performance started dropping in June. He was put on the IL in July with elbow soreness before being traded to the Nationals. Martinez confirmed that Gore was on track to be ready for spring training.

Gray didn’t make the leap that many hoped to see in his first full big league season in 2022. Over 28 starts, he posted a negative WAR with a 5.02 ERA and 5.86 FIP. Despite getting fewer whiffs, his slider continued to be his best pitch. His curveball and changeup didn’t see any real improvement, and his four-seamer took a significant step back; batters had a .429 wOBA and 45.1% hard hit rate against it. By the end of the season, he was throwing it just 35% of the time.

That’s the starting rotation Williams will be joining. It’s doubtful that he will be the piece that puts Washington over the top in the NL East. The Braves won the World Series in 2021 and had the second-best record in the NL in 2022. Both the Mets and Phillies just signed free agents for the gross domestic product of a small island nation. (That’s not entirely a joke. Turner: $300 million; Verlander, Nimmo, Senga, Quintana and Robertson: $358 million; GDP of the Marshall Islands: $271 million.)

But while Williams is in no danger of dragging the Nationals into contention, the ability to hand the ball to a reliable starter at least once every five days should make a team that won just 55 games last year much less painful to watch. And if nothing else, the Nationals still have Joey Meneses.





Davy Andrews is a Brooklyn-based musician and a contributing writer for FanGraphs. He can be found on Twitter @davyandrewsdavy.

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David Klein
1 year ago

I’d bet the under in innings for Stras way under. I don’t expect it but there’s a non zero chance that Williams is their best and most consistent starter.

Last edited 1 year ago by David Klein
Easyenoughmember
1 year ago
Reply to  David Klein

And that he’s traded mid-season.