Former Washington Nationals starter could be A's target this winter

Jason Burke | Nov 9, 2024

Mar 15, 2024; Port St. Lucie, Florida, USA; Washington Nationals starting pitcher Trevor Williams (32) warms-up before the bottom of the first inning against the New York Mets at Clover Park. Mandatory Credit: Jim Rassol-Imagn Images / Jim Rassol-Imagn Images

The Washington Nationals received 66 2/3 innings of terrific pitching from Trevor Williams in 2024, with the right-hander posting a 2.03 ERA (2.79 FIP) and holding a 6-1 record for the rebuilding Nats. Unfortunately, Williams landed on the IL in early June with a right flexor muscle strain after 11 starts.

Obviously the ERA makes him an appealing free agent for a team like the Athletics to target, given that he's likely to be fairly affordable after earning $6.5 million per season the past two years. Yet, there are two more stats that really jump out with Williams that make him look like a pretty good fit for the A's temporary home in Sacramento.

The first is his walk rate of 6.9%. The A's have been targeting pitchers with better control of late, and this is much better than a league average rate. His career rate is also right in that relam at 7.6% across nine seasons, so that is an area of his game that the A's could potentially count on.

The second stat that jumped out from his line last year was that he allowed home runs on just 4.2% of fly balls, which was the best mark by any starter with at least 50 innings in 2024. The question here is whether or not this will be repeatable for Williams in 2025.

With the A's set to play at Sutter Health Park, the factors of the park figure to be a little more hitter-friendly than they had been at the Oakland Coliseum, so limiting walks will be even more important for this club, and keeping the ball in the yard may also be a little more tricky as well.

While he led the league in the HR/FB rate in 2024, the sample size was fairly small, and his career rate has been 12.8%, which is roughly three times more than what he produced this past season. The early indication would be that this is not necessarily replicable.

However, Williams also made some changes to his pitch mix with the Nationals in 2024, limiting his four-seam usage, going from 43% to 36%, and using his sweeper a whole lot more. Those two pitches combined for 57% of his pitch mix and held batting averages against of .196 (heater) and .135 (sweeper). He also scrapped his curveball, which he'd only thrown 7% of the time, but batters held a slugging percentage of .629 against it in 2023.

There are reasons to believe that the production Williams had in 2024 was no fluke, and that he could be an under-the-radar option for the A's to consider this winter. The Athletics may add one or two starters this winter, and there likely aren't many that could both represent an upgrade and could be coaxed to pitching in Sacramento that are available on the free agent market. Williams may be one of those few.

If not, they could always go for a salary dump option as well.