Until yesterday afternoon, Kyle Finnegan was the longest-tenured National at the MLB level, having been with the team since Opening Day 2020 (and with zero days on the injured list in those five-plus years, a remarkable feat for any pitcher). Yesterday, Finnegan was traded to the Detroit Tigers for their #15 prospect (per MLB Pipeline), Josh Randall, and fellow starting pitcher R.J. Sales. Randall is a 2024 third-round draftee who recently was promoted to high-A and should slot immediately in the Wilmington rotation, while Sales was a tenth-round pick a year ago who has been enjoying a strong season in low-A.

You can’t ask much more out of a relief pitcher than what Finnegan provided, certainly not when they’re signed as a minor league free agent with zero big league experience, as he was in December 2019. Finnegan appeared in 331 games over his Nats tenure, saving 108 of them (five short of Chad Cordero’s Nats record) with a 3.66 ERA and 1.312 WHIP. Although his save chances could be high-wire acts (it felt like there was always a runner on base). His blown saves were spectacular when he just didn’t have his best stuff on a given night, he was an astoundingly consistent and durable pitcher from day one, a class act who never ducked media scrums after a blown save and never said no to taking the ball. Hopefully, he does well in whatever his new role is in Detroit - I look forward to seeing him escape a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the seventh inning of an ALCS game in a couple of months (and also to getting regular updates from my in-laws, big Tigers fans who live in northern Michigan).

There was no game yesterday, as the Nats either enjoyed a day off at home or checked their phones every thirty seconds to see if they missed a call from Mike DeBartolo thanking them for their service with the organization. In what feels like something of a major upset, neither Josh Bell nor Nathaniel Lowe was traded anywhere, breaking Bell’s streak of consecutive deadline trades at three (despite him being red-hot for the last several weeks - he even had two infield hits the other day!). The Nats will play three games against the Brewers starting tonight.

There are baseball players who get the most out of their talents, and then there are players who get the MOST out of their talents, and Alex Call is the latter. A third-round draft pick by the White Sox out of a backwater baseball school (Ball State) way back in 2016, Call was traded to Cleveland two years later for Yonder Alonso, then ground out the next three and a half years at AA and AAA before getting a cup of coffee in 2022. Faced with a crowded 40-man situation, the Guardians DFA’d him right after the 2022 trade deadline, whereupon the Nats claimed him off of waivers. He is who he is, a moderately good defensive outfielder who walks, doesn’t strike out often, always gives a professional at-bat (death, taxes, and Alex Call taking his timeout with two strikes), plays smart, and always gives 100%. He’s a winning role player.

In return for Call the Dodgers sent a pair of pitching prospects, 20-year-old Sean Paul Liñan (please tell me that his entrance song is “Get Busy”), currently dominating high-A as a 20-year-old, and 23-year-old teammate Eriq Swan, who is striking out ten per nine but also walking the yard (six per nine - yikes!).

Call toggled between Rochester and Washington enough that he still has two options and four years of team control remaining after this year. He will undoubtedly be a short-side platoon outfielder and occasional pinch-runner for the Dodgers, and we should all be rooting for him to get molten hot for a series and win an NLCS MVP or something.

📌 Nationals Trade Kyle Finnegan to Tigers: Analyzing the Josh Randall and RJ Sales Return

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📌 MLB trade deadline 2025: Biggest winners and losers (ESPN)