{"id":23366,"date":"2019-07-31T17:49:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T21:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=23366"},"modified":"2019-07-31T17:49:59","modified_gmt":"2019-07-31T21:49:59","slug":"washington-nationals-acquire-pitcher-hunter-strickland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/07\/31\/washington-nationals-acquire-pitcher-hunter-strickland\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Nationals Acquire Pitcher Hunter Strickland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/mlb-teams\/washington-nationals\/\" target=\"_self\">Washington Nationals<\/a> acquired pitcher <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/strichu01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hunter Strickland<\/a><\/strong> from the <a href=\"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/mlb-teams\/seattle-mariners\/\" target=\"_self\">Seattle Mariners<\/a> in exchange for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=fletch000aar&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aaron Fletcher<\/a>. Strickland is 30 years old and is joining his third team.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Nationals have acquired Hunter Strickland from the Mariners for Aaron Fletcher, per sources. Deal is pending physicals.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Feinsand\/status\/1156634339939115009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 31, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Strickland&#8217;s Career<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Strickland is a right-handed relief pitcher. He spent his first five years with the <a href=\"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/mlb-teams\/san-francisco-giants\/\" target=\"_self\">San Francisco Giants<\/a> mostly as a middle reliever. In 2018 after an injury to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/melanma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Mark Melancon<\/strong><\/a>, Strickland got his first chance at closing.<\/p>\n<p>Strickland was successful but after blowing a save he punched a wall and broke his hand. He would be out for 8 weeks and would never regain the closer role again.<\/p>\n<p>Strickland signed with the Mariners before the 2019 season. On March 30th he suffered a lat strain that put him on the shelf for a couple of months. Strickland has only appeared in four games this season.<\/p>\n<p>Strickland has not pitched well since coming off the IL. So this trade can be risky for the Nationals as Strickland as is signed through 2021. Strickland&#8217;s career numbers are 14-15 with a 2.98 ERA and 21 saves.<\/p>\n<h3>Strickland Scouting Report<\/h3>\n<p>Strickland has a good fastball. He does tend to allow too much contact. He does have 214 strikeouts in 229 innings pitched Strickland has shown the ability to strike out some batters.<\/p>\n<p>Originally a starting pitcher Strickland was moved to the bullpen after he had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/johnto01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tommy John<\/a> surgery in 2013. Strickland will not be closing games for the Nationals instead he will provide depth for a struggling bullpen.<\/p>\n<p>Strickland does have postseason experience. In eleven career postseason innings, Strickland has a 1-0 record with a 5.73 ERA.<\/p>\n<h3>Aaron Fletcher Scouting Report<\/h3>\n<p>Aaron Fletcher is 23-years-old and a left-handed relief pitcher. He played four years at the University of Houston and went 11-5 with a 2.06 ERA. Fletcher also struck out 146 batters in 170 innings pitched.<\/p>\n<p>In two seasons as part of the Nationals minor leagues, Fletcher went 7-5 with a 2.17 ERA with 103 strikeouts in 91 innings.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"Dt4pKBg1Qbx-hvHiYAyWnA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1133676535\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'Dt4pKBg1Qbx-hvHiYAyWnA',sig:'_vX2w_gjBxT_Hl2VC0y2H05xMX8o15tTzkKOZE6AUBo=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1133676535',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Washington Nationals acquire pitcher Hunter Strickland from the Seattle Mariners in exchange for Aaron Fletcher. Strickland is joining his third team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":653,"featured_media":23410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,19],"tags":[224,158,38],"class_list":["post-23366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mariners","category-nationals","tag-hunter-strickland","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-washington-nationals"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}