The 2025-2026 offseason of the Washington Nationals to this point has been a difficult one to process as a fan of this team. While the organization was obviously extremely behind the times from an infrastructure standpoint and needed clear updating, the result of that is that the big-league roster has been secondary in terms of priorities for the club.
New President of Baseball Operations Paul Toboni had a huge checklist on his hands when the offseason began in terms of actually hiring people in the front office that were doing anything besides collecting a paycheck, which Mike Rizzo and his staff had been doing since 2019, and to this point, he has succeeded in that. His goal was to turn the organization into a player development machine, and at least the names look promising, although we've yet to actually see anything.
While we wait for more exciting dominoes to fall whether it be MacKenzie Gore hopefully being traded for a large return or even a competent major league asset to join the team in Rhys Hoskins, there are still other transactions that are worth reporting on. One of these actually came on Tuesday, when the Nationals, who have been busy on the waiver wire so far, made their latest addition.
They claimed an interesting guy off waivers from the Minnesota Twins in the form of utility man Mickey Gasper, whose true role for the Nationals is relatively unknown at this point. To this point of his career in the big leagues, the 29-year-old Gasper has appeared in 58 games, with 133 plate appearances to his name so far.
His slash line is a bit of an eyesore, with a .133/.250/.195 line good for just a .445 OPS to go along with 2 homers and 11 RBIs. Hopefully, Gasper is going to be more of a minor league depth piece, as this type of production on a big league roster combined with his age would be pretty inexcusable, even for a club like the Nationals.
However, his versatility might make him somewhat valuable, as he has appeared in 19 games at catcher, 9 games at first base, 8 at second base, and 1 game apiece in each of the corner outfield spots. Unfortunately for Gasper, the Nationals already have a guy who's a pretty great utility player in Nasim Nunez, but Gasper's ability to play catcher might just give him a chance to make the roster.
What do you think of the Mickey Gasper addition to the club? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.