{"id":469874,"date":"2026-02-12T09:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/469874\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T09:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:11:09","slug":"nationals-sign-miles-mikolas-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/469874\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationals Sign Miles Mikolas – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nationals added an innings eater on Wednesday, announcing a one-year contract with veteran right-hander Miles Mikolas<\/a>. It\u2019s reportedly a $2.25MM base salary for the Octagon client, who can earn another $750K in bonuses. Mikolas would collect $100K apiece for every 10 innings between 100 and 120, $200K at 130 frames, and $250K at 140 innings. DJ Herz<\/a> has been placed on the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Herz underwent Tommy John surgery last April<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mikolas, 37, became a workhorse in his mid-thirties. He began his career with the Padres and Rangers before spending three years with the Yomiuri Giants in NPB. During the 2017-18 offseason, he signed with the Cardinals and made 32 starts in each of the next two years, but forearm issues kept him off the field for most of 2020-21. Since 2022, he has started at least 31 games each year, including a league-leading 35 in 2023. Only one pitcher, Logan Webb<\/a>, has made more starts than Mikolas over the last four seasons, and only four have thrown more innings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Mikolas, the quality of those innings has declined as he has aged and his stuff has diminished. In 2025, he pitched to a 4.84 ERA and a 4.83 SIERA. While the righty has never been one to rack up strikeouts, his strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratio dropped to 14.9% and 2.70, respectively, the lowest either has ever been since before he left for Japan. The only pitcher to throw at least 150 innings last year with a worse strikeout rate was Mikolas\u2019s new Nationals teammate Mitchell Parker<\/a>. Meanwhile, no pitcher (min. 150 IP) gave up barrels at a higher rate than Mikolas; according to Statcast\u2019s xERA, he ranked among the bottom 9% of pitchers in MLB. Pitch models that evaluate raw stuff, such as Stuff+ and PitchingBot, also suggest that the veteran took a big step back in 2025. Overwhelming batters with nasty stuff was never how he succeeded, but his stuff metrics went from poor to some of the worst in the game this past season.<\/p>\n

As negative as all that sounds, it\u2019s important to keep in mind that Mikolas still took the mound 31 times in 2025, tossing 156 1\/3 frames. He made eight quality starts and finished five innings in all but seven of his outings. The Nationals badly needed an innings eater for a woefully inexperienced rotation set to include names like Josiah Gray<\/a>, Cade Cavalli<\/a>, Foster Griffin<\/a>, Jake Irvin<\/a>, Brad Lord<\/a>, and Parker. Of those arms, only Irvin and Parker have pitched so much as one qualifying major league season, while Gray is the only other to have a 30-start campaign under his belt. It\u2019s a group replete with injury concerns, consistency issues, and limited track records. The dependable Mikolas will boost the floor of what projects to be one of the worst starting rotations in the league.<\/p>\n

TalkNats<\/a> first reported the Nationals and Mikolas had conversations. Jake Mintz of Yahoo Sports!<\/a> was first on the agreement. Mark Zuckerman of Nats Journal<\/a> confirmed it was a major league deal, while Jon Heyman of The New York Post<\/a> had the $2.75MM base plus incentives. The Associated Press<\/a> reported the incentive specifics. Image courtesy of Jeff Curry, Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nationals added an innings eater on Wednesday, announcing a one-year contract with veteran right-hander Miles Mikolas. It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,191370,39956,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-469874","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-dj-herz","11":"tag-miles-mikolas","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}