{"id":424887,"date":"2026-01-20T06:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T06:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/424887\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T06:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T06:25:07","slug":"nationals-zach-penrod-agree-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/424887\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationals, Zach Penrod Agree To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Nationals are in agreement with lefty reliever\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=penrod001zac,penroza01&amp;search=Zach+Penrod&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-19_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Zach Penrod<\/a> on a minor league contract, reports <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/WillSammon\/status\/2013452056749568126\" rel=\"nofollow\">Will Sammon of The Athletic<\/a>. The Dynamic Sports Group client would be paid an $800K rate, marginally above the minimum, if he makes the MLB roster.<\/p>\n<p>Penrod is a former Red Sox farmhand who made seven appearances for Boston in 2024. Nationals president of baseball operations Paul Toboni was an assistant general manager for the Sox at the time. Penrod worked four innings of two-run ball, albeit with five free passes (four walks and a hit batter) against three strikeouts.<\/p>\n<p>The Red Sox designated Penrod for assignment last May in the aftermath of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/deverra01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-19_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Rafael Devers<\/a> trade. They\u2019d acquired two players on the 40-man (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hicksjo03.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-19_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jordan Hicks<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/harriky01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-19_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kyle Harrison<\/a>) in that deal and needed to drop someone from the roster. Boston traded Penrod to the Dodgers for cash. He spent six weeks on the 40-man roster but didn\u2019t make a big league appearance with Los Angeles. They ran him through outright waivers in August, and he elected minor league free agency at the end of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Penrod is coming off a rough year in Triple-A. He allowed almost eight earned runs per nine over 33 1\/3 innings. Penrod\u2019s command was unworkable, as he walked more than 20% of opposing hitters. The 28-year-old southpaw has always struggled to throw strikes but has a three-pitch mix (fastball, slider and changeup) that intrigued the Nats. He sits around 95 MPH on the heater.<\/p>\n<p>Washington\u2019s bullpen is wide open. Their only reliever with even two years of MLB service time is righty\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/fernaju02.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-19_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Julian Fern\u00e1ndez<\/a>, and almost all of that has come while he\u2019s been on the injured list. (He has 10 career appearances.) Every reliever on the 40-man roster has minor league options remaining, with only Rule 5 pick\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=mcgarr000gri&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-19_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Griff McGarry<\/a> required to stick on the MLB roster. There\u2019s ample opportunity for minor league free agents to try to earn a spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nationals are in agreement with lefty reliever\u00a0Zach Penrod on a minor league contract, reports Will Sammon of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85,223253],"class_list":{"0":"post-424887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-zach-penrod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}