Editors Note: This is the latest player profile in our 40-man breakdown series that we have started here at the Nats Report. Check our other player profiles.

Tanner Rainey

• Position: Right-Handed Relief Pitcher
• Current status: Signed thru 2024, Arb Eligible: 2025
• 2023 Grade: C-
• 2024 Opening Day Projection: Right-handed Relief Pitcher Washington Nationals
• 2023 stats:  13 G | 12.0IP | 3.75 ERA | 1.417 WHIP | 0 SV | 13 SO | 6 BB | 5 ER |

2023 Analysis: In 2023, Tanner Rainey returned to the pitcher’s mound after undergoing Tommy John surgery. However, he only appeared in one game towards the end of the season, and his statistics for the year do not show any ERA. Unfortunately, his Tommy John surgery took place late in the season, 2022, which caused him to miss most of the year, except for that one game. The end result for Tanner Rainey’s 2023 season can only be speculated. Tanner Rainey has a strong fastball, Velo (97.0), and a solid chase (30.1) and whiff (33.8); we can only imagine that 2023 will be a slight improvement in all those things, but 2023 was a year of recovery for Tanner Rainey.

2024 outlook: An article published by RotoWire provides that Tanner Rainey is off to a strong start at spring training camp 2024. RotoWire published that his fastball is 97 mph. Rainey will look to be someone racking up saves behind Hunter Harvey and Kyle Finnegan. Nationals fans will have to wait until Opening Day just to see how effective he is and what things he'll have to improve on further to rack up those saves and close out most games.

My prediction for Tanner Rainey this season is that he gets back in the swing of things and the Nationals figure out how to effectively use him as a closer, build up his arm strength, improve his overall pitching formations, and go from there. He's coming back from Tommy John surgery and has looked stellar in camp so far. The question does arise: how successful will he be on the mound? From the looks of it, he has a three-for-three, three wins, and three losses, but I could be completely wrong. He could have a dynamite year and go 5 for 4 but give up zero home runs. We'll just have to wait and see how the season plays out for Tanner Rainey.