To say that the Washington Nationals have been busy in the 2025-2026 offseason so far would be an absolute understatement. Truthfully, outside of maybe a couple teams at most, the Nationals have been arguably the biggest club of the offseason so far, which is a good thing.
Between hiring their new President of Baseball Operations in Paul Toboni, who has filled out basically an entirely new front office, seemingly completed yesterday with their hire of a new GM, and bringing in a new manager in Blake Butera, they have been super busy. Additionally, the team has already swung a couple trades for some young prospects, with one of them expected to be the starting catcher for the Nationals this season.
Even outside of those transactions, the Nationals have brought in a handful of minor league signings to bolster the team's farm depth, brought in some intriguing players in the Rule 5 Draft, and even made their first big-league signing of the Toboni era with Foster Griffin, who came over from Japan.
So yeah, the Nationals have already done a ton of work to help put them in a position to be a better team next season, but hopefully for us fans there is still more exciting transactions and signings to come before the season kicks off. However, with new additions comes attrition of their previous regime or roster as well, which sometimes can be a good or bad thing.
In this case, however, it is one to be happy for the player, as righty Sauryn Lao, a former waiver claim from the Seattle Mariners during last season, is headed overseas to the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) League. This is the second time this week that the Nationals have been linked with the NPB for one reason or another, as Griffin's signing was a notable one for the club.
But for Lao, he will be signing a 2-year contract with the Nippon-Ham Fighters, for a value that exceeds $3 million, according to Mike Rodriguez on X. His contract has one guaranteed year with one additional team option year, but it is a good opportunity for Lao to get some meaningful innings, and hopefully higher leverage ones to be able to rebuild more value for himself.
It is a strategy that has worked for a lot of pitchers such as Miles Mikolas, Erick Fedde, and now Foster Griffin, and will be a strategy that continues to be utilized by guys that are fringe big leaguers. Hopefully for Lao, who was not necessarily guaranteed to be a big leaguer anywhere next season, he can continue to develop and earn a better shot in MLB at a later point in time.
What do you think of Sauryn Lao heading overseas? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.