Nationals Lose Two Relievers After They Elected to Become Free Agents

Two bullpen arms are no longer with the Washington Nationals.

Brad Mills-Imagn Images

An overhaul of the Washington Nationals' bullpen unit has begun.

Plenty of changes are expected to occur this winter with the new front office regime in place. And now that Paul Toboni has reportedly decided on who is going to manage this team going forward, those should start to be implemented in the near future.

Bullpen has to be at the top of the list. After finishing the 2025 regular season with the worst ERA in baseball (5.59), new faces should be brought in to upgrade that relief staff and give this team a chance to win on a daily basis.

Well, some of the first changes have taken place without the Nationals even doing anything.

Mason Thompson, Eduardo Salazar Elect Free Agency

Daniel Kucin Jr.-Imagn Images

Washington announced they outrighted four players to Triple-A Rochester: right-hander pitchers Mason Thompson and Eduardo Salazar, left-handed pitcher Shinnosuke Ogasawara and catcher C.J. Stubbs.

Those are standard types of moves at this time of the offseason as teams try to open up some space on their 40-man rosters. However, for the Nationals, that resulted in both Thompson and Salazar electing to become free agents instead of accepting their outright assignment.

The following players have cleared outright waivers and have been assigned outright to Triple-A Rochester:
 
-Eduardo Salazar (declared free agency)
-Mason Thompson (declare free agency)
-Shinnosuke Ogasawara
-C.J. Stubbs

— Nationals Communications (@NationalsComms) October 29, 2025

On the surface this is notable. Thompson is a former third-round pick who has been appearing in the bigs since 2021. And Salazar has had 55 major league outings for Washington the past two years, with him performing well in 2024.

But outside of Salazar's showing last year when he had a 2.96 ERA and ERA+ that was 39 points above the league average mark of 100, that relief duo hasn't provided much for the Nationals. Thompson has an ERA of 5.27 across 116 total appearances with Washington, and Salazar followed up his great showing in 2024 with an ERA of 8.38 this past season.

It wasn't clear if either were going to factor into the bullpen mix for the Nationals in 2026 based on how they have performed. So it makes sense why they would want to test the open market and see if they can get a big league opportunity with another team where they'd have a clean slate.

For Washington, while Thompson and Salazar weren't effective for them on a consistent basis by any means, and they actually were more of a hindrance than a help this past campaign, not having them in the mix does impact their depth.

They'll have to backfill those openings to ensure they have a multiple options they can turn to over the course of a long season, but this is a good sign that real changes are going to be made to that unit.