NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 All-Star shortstop CJ Abrams is moving to second base for the Washington Nationals, vacating the only position he\u2019s played during his five seasons with the club.<\/p>\n
Manager Blake Butera said Friday that Abrams has begun working out at second. He said the transition will be more \u201cmultiday than multiweek\u201d and that Abrams will swap spots with second baseman Nasim Nu\u00f1ez.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust thought this was the best thing for our team going forward,\u201d Butera said. \u201cWe think with those two up the middle and Nasim playing more shortstop gives us the best chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butera said Abrams was amenable to the move while noting that shortstops take pride in playing the position \u2014 something Abrams also acknowledged.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just where I\u2019ve been playing my whole life,\u201d said Abrams, who led off and played shortstop Friday night against the New York Mets. \u201cI believe I can be a great shortstop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abrams, an NL All-Star starter, is having a career year offensively, with 28 homers, a major league-best 91 RBIs, a .284 average and an .898 OPS.<\/p>\n
Abrams also leads NL shortstops with 19 errors, just three shy of his career high from 2023 and 2025. His .958 fielding percentage would also be a career worst.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said that a few times \u2014 like, look, the competitor in me wants to say I can do this at shortstop but also understand we have to do what\u2019s best for the team and the organization going forward,\u201d Butera said.<\/p>\n
Nu\u00f1ez has nine errors and a .965 fielding percentage at second base. He leads the majors in range factor at the position.<\/p>\n
The Nationals also used first-round picks on shortstops Seaver King and Eli Willits in 2024 and 2025. Willits, selected first overall, is Washington\u2019s no. 1 prospect, per MLB.com, while King ranks fourth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re thinking about all those things,\u201d Butera said. \u201cBut ultimately, right now, what we\u2019re trying to do is do what\u2019s best for this team and this organization to win as many games as possible the rest of the year and also set ourselves up for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abrams hasn\u2019t played second base since his rookie season in 2022, when he made 13 appearances at the position for the San Diego Padres.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not too big of a change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n
Jerry Beach, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 All-Star shortstop CJ Abrams is moving to second base for the Washington Nationals, vacating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-858375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858375","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=858375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}