{"id":96378,"date":"2025-02-25T16:45:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T21:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=96378"},"modified":"2025-02-25T16:45:59","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T21:45:59","slug":"nationals-sign-reliever-kyle-finnegan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/02\/25\/nationals-sign-reliever-kyle-finnegan\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Nationals Bring Back All-Star Reliever Kyle Finnegan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Free agent reliever Kyle Finnegan is returning to the Washington Nationals after coming to terms on a one-year deal. The team has not confirmed the deal, which Jesse Rogers of ESPN reports is worth $6 million. Finnegan has spent his entire five-year career with the Washington Nationals, where he compiled a 3.56 ERA and 88 saves. Washington <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/01\/28\/diamondbacks-bullpen-rumors-closer\/\" target=\"_self\">non-tendered the 33-year-old<\/a> in November, making him a free agent for the first time in his major league career.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Kyle Finnegan Back In D.C.<\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">News: The Washington Nationals are re-signing reliever Kyle Finnegan to a 1-year, $6 million deal, sources tell ESPN. The all-star closer returns to Washington after they non-tendered him late last year. Finnegan saved 38 games for them last season.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jesse Rogers (@JesseRogersESPN) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JesseRogersESPN\/status\/1894488104494317605?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 25, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Drafted by the Oakland Athletics in 2013, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/finneky01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kyle Finnegan<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> spent seven seasons in the A\u2019s organization before signing a major league contract with the Nationals in 2019. He took over as the Nationals closer in 2021 and pitched the fifth immaculate inning in franchise history. Finnegan earned <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/15\/kyle-finnegan-all-star-replaces-ryan-helsley\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">his first All-Star selection<\/a> last season and finished the year with a 3.68 ERA and a career-high 38 saves. The veteran right-hander ranked second in the National League in saves and third among all major league closers. His 38 saves last season were the seventh most single season saves in Nationals\u2019 franchise history, while his 88 career saves rank eighth all-time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Finnegan was considered a trade candidate at the deadline but instead finished the season in the back end of the Nationals\u2019 bullpen. He sports a three-pitch arsenal and relies heavily on a four-seam fastball that at 97.2 mph has <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/baseballsavant.mlb.com\/savant-player\/kyle-finnegan-640448?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ranked in the top 10%<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for three consecutive seasons. Consistently one of the National League\u2019s top relievers, Finnegan has posted a sub-4.00 ERA in five straight seasons, while topping 60 innings over the past four. Only Finnegan and Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase have recorded at least 65 appearances and double-digit saves in each of the past four seasons.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The veteran reliever <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/01\/23\/kyle-finnegan-free-agency-rumors\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">drew interest from several contenders<\/a> before coming to terms on a new deal to remain in Washington. Finnegan returns to a completely revamped Nationals bullpen, joining recent additions Jorge L\u00f3pez, Lucas Sims, Colin Poche, Evan Reifert, and Shinnosuke Ogasawara.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: \u00a0Daniel Kucin Jr.-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Free agent reliever Kyle Finnegan is returning to the Washington Nationals after coming to terms on a one-year deal. The team has not confirmed the deal, which Jesse Rogers of ESPN reports is worth $6 million. Finnegan has spent his entire five-year career with the Washington Nationals, where he compiled a 3.56 ERA and 88 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":96383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[19,1071],"tags":[28572,2262],"class_list":["post-96378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nationals","category-mlb","tag-kyle-finnegan","tag-mlb-free-agency"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96378","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\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96378"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96385,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96378\/revisions\/96385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}