On Tuesday, the Washington Nationals decided to go back to the waiver wire in hopes of bolstering their organization's depth of relief pitching. As everyone knows at this point, the team has struggled with their bullpen basically all season long, and perhaps this latest addition might be able to provide a bit of value for the club.
The name they picked up is 26-year-old righty Ryan Loutos, who has spent time with both the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers. It is probably pretty safe to say that Loutos is nothing more than a shot in the dark at this point, as we have seen Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo resort to the waiver wire numerous times over the last few years.
Previously, some of those names have been a mixed bag, with overall successes like Alex Call, who was claimed from the Cleveland Guardians, and Robert Garcia, who was claimed from the Marlins. Another guy who comes to mind was Joe La Sorsa, who was claimed from the Tampa Bay Rays, and had much less success than both Call and Garcia.
After designating Jorge Lopez for assignment a few weeks back, the team had an open spot on their 40-man roster that had been open, and they decided that Loutos would be the placeholder to fill up the roster. So what are the Nationals getting in their new righty?
For starters, Loutos will now be on his 3rd organization this year, as he has been DFA'd by both St. Louis and Los Angeles this season. He has an extremely miniscule amount of true big league experience to this point, having logged just 5.1 innings in 5 career games, so the surface numbers don't look the greatest on paper.
However, he does have a 2.41 ERA and 0.964 WHIP at the AAA level between the Dodgers and Cardinals organizations, so clearly the stuff can play a little bit. Loutos features a 4-pitch mix that includes a 4-seamer, slider, change-up, and sinker, and he mixes up his usage of the pitches a pretty fair amount.
He isn't a guy who throws overwhelmingly hard with his fastball , sitting around 95.1 MPH on average, but he can dial back his slider to about 86.1 MPH on average, which he uses to help keep batters off balance. We will see what role the 26-year-old plays, if any, for the Nationals this season, but for now, he has been sent down to AAA Rochester where he will await a chance to get back to the big leagues.
What do you think of the Ryan Loutos addition? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.