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With no control over Griffin after this year, it's really down to extend him now for more money than he's ever seen, deal him at the deadline if we are out of WC, or push at the deadline if we are in contention for the WC. I will guess Toboni will argue against the latter if it could adversely impact the long term build out. He's from the Red Sox system, and they've pursued half-hearted deadline moves since 2019. I'm sure he doesn't want to be on the wrong end of the equivalent of Mike Soroka for Christian Franklin and Ronny Cruz. I could see making Griffin an offer for his age 31-33 seasons as birn g attractive to him after kicking around for a dozen years. He runs the Fedde risk if he doesn't. There were only 5 contracts this past winter given out that were longer than 3 years (Cease, Suarez, Valdez, King, and Ponce). See if you can guarantee him something in the $15-18 million range for the next couple of seasons with an option for a third. Of course, this also depends on ownership being willing to to commit Trevor Williams+ type money again.Realistically, he's being dealt at the deadline if he shows anything over the next 3 months.
Extend him now. Enough of this flipping guys at the deadline for low-tier lottery tickets.
Extend him for another year. Enouch accumulating Single-A prospects. It's time to build. Let next year's rotation start with Cavalli, Griffin, and (shock) Irvin. I don't trust Irvin, but he can be the number 4 or 5 starter.
Foster Griffin spent three years overseas trying to learn Japanese and reinvent himself as a starting pitcher in Nippon Professional Baseball. He returned to the United States on a one-year, $5.5 million contract and with voices in his head.
As he stood in the Washington Nationals’ clubhouse on a recent afternoon, he searched for a way to get his point across. He scanned the place where he once again gets to play cards, talk shop and joke around in English and pointed toward a couple of discussions taking place nearby.“You know how you can kind of hear those conversations going on over there?” Griffin said. “You block that out for nine months, essentially. And then when you come back, and you’re in the airport … I remember looking at my wife like, ‘I feel like I have all these voices in my head.’”In Japan, it was as if the entire environment — from the hitters he had to face to the silence he had to embrace — was tailored to challenge him.Society was quiet and respectful, words Griffin’s Nats teammates now use to describe him. Starters get by with crafty arsenals and thorough planning. Overseas, a pitcher can either use the solitude to solve their problems or succumb to it, crumble and call it a career.It’s evident which road Foster took.
Griffin would not be here without Japan, its opportunities and its obstacles. His time overseas altered his prefrontal cortex and his arsenal. Now, they talk about him like he’s an expert. He calls his own pitches, walks teammates through their game plans and thinks through every pitch with respect for what it sets up later in the game.It’s him and his seven pitches against the world.“He’s got an arsenal that can answer almost any question,” pitching coach Simon Mathews said.In Japan, ‘I had a binder like this’In 2023, Griffin walked off the mound after his overseas debut, conducted an in-stadium interview in front of 35,000 noisy fans and a brass band at the Tokyo Dome and went straight to the binder.Even after seven scoreless innings, he realized he had a lot of work to do.When the Nationals’ new executives and coaches came in, they set a series of philosophical goals. One of them was to become the best problem solvers in baseball. They sought out trainers who hadn’t worked professionally and lower-level college coaches who had turned programs around with limited access to data and technology.They also sought out Griffin.There’s a reason pitchers often return from Japan with a deeper arsenal and a more nuanced approach. There’s the schedule, where pitchers face the same five teams for most of the season. There are the hitters, who treat strikeouts like failure. And there are the lineups, which typically pattern out with a weaker lower third than MLB lineups, in part, because pitchers hit over there. When they’re on the mound, those pitchers must pay particular attention to where they can and cannot avoid damage in the lineup.It demands a keen eye.They have to study tendencies. They have to read swings. They have to game it out, and become the pitcher their old-school family member says is going extinct. And without 95 mph in his back pocket — he had given up on that pursuit after undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2020 — Griffin needed something to solve these contact-oriented lineups.“Lefties would just stand on top of the plate and take me the other way, and that was starting to get me really angry,” said Griffin, who had pitches that only moved away from those lefties.So he added the sinker.Then they started spoiling pitches at the top and bottom of the zone.So he added a sweeper.Then they tightened up with two strikes.So he added a splitter.“I just kept getting frustrated,” Griffin said with a chuckle.With most of the team’s game-planning information limited to batting averages and swing percentages, he found a source outside the organization who had access to more comprehensive Trackman data. Without any experience speaking Japanese, he learned enough to get around, order food and talk baseball.Without much to turn to socially — save for two teammates, Yuji Akahoshi and Iori Yamasaki, who studied English closely in school — he became a bit of a recluse. The outside world was reduced to a murmur.
When he didn’t pitch, the schedule permitted Griffin to head home to eat dinner with his wife and tuck his kid into bed. In the fourth or fifth inning, he’d put the game on TV and watch with his notepad out. This month, Griffin stood in the Cincinnati Reds’ visiting clubhouse and walked through the process.“By Year 3,” Griffin began, as he clasped his hands together, then widened them until they were about a foot apart, “I had a binder like this.”
It shouldn’t have been so easy to pick apart Jake Irvin’s first bullpen this spring. The team asked Irvin to throw 15 pitches, breaking it down into five three-pitch segments. In each segment, he was asked to get an imaginary batter out. At the end, he heard a voice behind him.“Oh, so you like to pitch like this,” Griffin asked matter-of-factly, before laying his estimate of Irvin’s entire approach out.“Yeah, I’m adding a couple things to the arsenal,” Irvin said.“I love your sequence — try starting the ball here, and then tunnel this other pitch off of it,” Griffin told Irvin.The explanation went on. Irvin listened, stunned. It was the very first time Griffin had ever seen him throw.“Obviously, we have (pitching coaches Simon Mathews, Sean Doolittle and Dustin Glant) and (catching coach Bobby Wilson) are already working on that stuff with us,” Irvin said. “But to have another pitcher in your ear being like, ‘Yeah, I’ve gotten these results in game. It will be effective.’ That stuff really helps with confidence.”This is where Griffin fits in culturally.
Last month in New York, Cade Cavalli flipped through a binder before his start. Griffin walked over, peered over his shoulder and started pointing to the tendencies of each hitter in the Mets’ lineup. That night Cavalli struck out 10.“It’s like a chess game to him,” Cavalli said. “He’s always thinking ahead.”Nationals center fielder Jacob Young plays with a PitchCom in his ear, which allows him to hear what Griffin is thinking on the mound as he pitches. He said he’s even learned about pitching when Griffin is on the mound; how he messes with hitters’ timing with leg kicks and sequences.
Nationals center fielder Jacob Young plays with a PitchCom in his ear, which allows him to hear what Griffin is thinking on the mound as he pitches.
Should have put this in the Foster Griffin thread...Spencer Nussbaum is a great reason to subscribe to The Athletic. Even better, since the Washington Post has destroyed itself, subscribe to the New York Times and you get The Athletic as part of The Times. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7306109/2026/05/25/nationals-foster-griffin-journey-japan/?unlocked_article_code=1.lFA.ZgwZ.3BGRf5vBiLLa&source=athletic_user_shared_gift_article_copylink&smid=url-share-ta
I worry about this being another Corbin situation. Looks great and then the following season falls back to earth. I'm kind of on the bandwagon of trading him while his stock is high even though I'm usually completely against that.
I never thought Corbin was good and I predicted in the 2020 thread he would be a disappointment. Griffin not only seems to be a legit starter but with his scientific approach would be a great coach after his playing career is over. I would extend him long term and let him retire as a Nat.
The last Griffin in DC won rookie of the year and flamed out. Be careful extending this one.
See absolutely 0 reason to trade him. The haul you would get would be low-level prospects that won't fully develop til when the Nats will be an even more competitive or AA/AAA junk prospects.
They were apparently trying to extend him, but if they can't reach a deal then don't they have to get something for him, assuming we're out of playoff contention?If we are in contention then by all means keep him doing his thing unless you can get some big haul.
