The Washington Nationals have been a very busy team so far since their season ended. Besides replacing basically an entire front office from top to bottom, filling out a big league coaching staff complete with the youngest manager in the sport, and allowing over 30 minor leaguers to become free agents, it's clear that new President of Baseball Operations Paul Toboni is trying to clean up the organization in a big way.
While we do not yet know what will happen with some of the bigger names on the big league roster such as MacKenzie Gore or CJ Abrams amid uncertain futures for them both, the Nationals did officially get on the board yesterday by bringing in a free agent for the first time this offseason.
This free agent might not be a household name by any means, but for any big Nationals fans out there who can remember back to when the Nationals traded for Josh Bell as Mike Rizzo gave fans a big Christmas surprise, it's a familiar name. In fact, for this signing, it was a true full circle moment as this prospect is back in the organization.
Righty Eddy Yean is now set to be back in the organization for the first time since he got traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates back in 2020, but how has he fared since leaving? At the time of the deal, Yean was still a full-time starting pitcher working his way through the minors, but he has since been moved to being a reliever.
Now at 24-years-old, Yean is coming off a decent season in which he spent the entirety of with AAA Indianapolis for the Pirates' organization, and he will provide some valuable reliever depth back in the Nationals' organization now. In signing a minor league deal, not a ton will be expected of Yean, but Toboni wants to bring in new faces to outfit the upper levels of the Nationals' minor leagues, and Yean definitely fits that profile.
This past season, he posted an 8-5 record in 50 games, starting 4 of them, while throwing 70.2 innings to a 3.44 ERA and 1.599 WHIP to go along with 54 strikeouts and 45 walks. The numbers for Yean don't exactly jump off the page, but again, he should still be able to provide some depth for a AAA Rochester bullpen that was one of the worst in the minor leagues this past season. While not the most noteworthy signing, hopefully this is a sign of things to come for Paul Toboni in his first offseason at the helm.
What do you think of the Eddy Yean signing? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.