On the 100-day countdown to Opening Day for the Washington Nationals, news broke that President of Baseball Operations, Paul Toboni, signed his first MLB free agent during his Nats’ tenure. That player is Foster Griffin who might get confused with pitcher Griff McGarry from the Rule-5 if you call the former as Griff or even Griffin which is McGarry’s legal first name. Actually, Griffin’s legal name is Fred Griffin, and he uses his middle name of Foster.

With Trevor Williams expected to start the season on the 60-day IL, Griffin also gets penciled in as the oldest member of the pitching staff at the ripe age of 30. A former 1st round pick in the 2014 draft, he began his career in the KC Royals organization and was eventually traded to the Toronto Blue Jays. Between the two teams, he pitched in seven career games, all in the bullpen. Griffin then signed with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan and found success over the past three years, and a 2.57 ERA which is better than what Shota Imanaga finished with in Japan at 3.18.

While the signing isn’t official, this is the type of move that will get the Nationals a cost-effective piece, whether MacKenzie Gore is traded or not. Griffin is a 6’3 lefty, by the way. He is a finesse pitcher who said he learned two new pitches in Japan, and will bring back a splitter and a sweeper back to MLB in his expanded repertoire.

A quick look at the 40-man roster, and that will expand to 39 players once Griffin becomes official. Some of those players are injured as mentioned with Williams as well as DJ Herz. Based on yesterday’s trade, ‘in’ is Luis Perales, and ‘out’ is Jake Bennett. The minor league starting pitcher depth on the 40-man roster is now Perales, Riley Cornelio, Jake Eder, and Andry Lara.

Today’s rotation has Andrew Alvarez, Cade Cavalli, Gore, Josiah Gray, Griffin, Jake Irvin, Brad Lord, and Mitchell Parker all in the mix of the eight main characters competing for starter’s spots — unless Toboni and his staff have different ideas — and you would expect that with Gore most likely traded that number becomes seven, and one or two goes to the bullpen as a long-man leaving five — or one of them goes to Triple-A as depth. In all, maybe Cavalli and Griffin are the only names you can safely pencil in for the 2026 starting rotation.

But then again, there could always be pitcher(s) coming back in a potential Gore trade. At this point, Toboni has been proven to be unpredictable. That makes for a nervous roster. Who could be traded next?

FanGraphs added Griffin into the mix at a +1.9 WAR over only 129.0 innings, and ratcheted the win total up to 74.8 wins given the .462 winning percentage. Another .002 and the Nats would leapfrog Angels. The Nats aren’t too far behind the Guardians, Reds, Athletics, and Pirates. A couple more acquisitions of players of impact, and the Nats can leapfrog more teams.

While the Perales trade was almost a WAR wash for Bennett, both the Harry Ford and Griffin acquisitions moved the needle up. They have Ford contributing +0.8 to this 2026 season as the team’s best catcher.

Where FanGraphs has room for improvement is a legit DH and first baseman, and preferably a right-hander which doesn’t seem doable based on any readily available players. Instead, spend that extra cash on a legit first baseman like Ryan O’Hearn on the free agent board, and that should add another win as he is at a FanGraphs +1.4 WAR. That would get the Nats to about 76 wins, before you consider a hit if Gore is traded. A Captain Obvious result is that there will be many more changes to the W/L projections before the offseason ends.

On dollars, the Nats are just under $60 million for active payroll, and just under $95 million when you add in Stephen Strasburg‘s payroll hit. On the CBT payroll, the Nats are at $115 million. And that puts the team exactly $25 million under the 2025 Opening Day payroll of $140 million.

With the money that Toboni just saved by signing Griffin, he could add another starter or spend his money on the bullpen and a first baseman. You do that, and this might be a team that won’t blow the hard work of the starting pitchers via a shoddy bullpen like we saw in 2025.

The Griffin deal was first reported by Robert Murray of FanSided.com, and is contingent on the southpaw passing a physical before it becomes official. By the way, last year the Nationals did not have an official MLB free agent signing completed until Dec. 19.