Coming into 2024, Trevor Williams was something of an afterthought on the Nationals’ roster. But six weeks into the 2024 season, he has emerged as one of the more interesting members of the club, thanks to his utter dominance so far this year.
Entering the campaign, most baseball fans outside of the D.C. area probably weren’t thinking of Williams at all. Fans of the Nats were probably more excited about young players like MacKenzie Gore, James Wood or Dylan Crews. Williams was a veteran stopgap who didn’t draw much attention. He had some serviceable years in the past but struggled over 2019 and 2020, getting bumped into a swing role in 2021 and 2022.
The rebuilding Nationals signed him to a two-year deal going into 2023 with a $13MM guarantee. They had traded away many of their most established players and needed a veteran innings eater. Patrick Corbin’s contract was aging incredibly poorly while young guys like Gore, Josiah Gray and Cade Cavalli had not yet been fully established at the big league level.
The first year of the Williams deal was quite unremarkable. He did take the ball 30 times and chew up 144 1/3 innings, but with a 5.55 earned run average. His 8% walk rate was around league average but he struck out just 16.8% of batters faced and allowed 34 home runs.
After that performance, he didn’t even seem to be guaranteed a rotation spot on the 2024 club. Back in December, manager Dave Martinez said that Williams “right now is our fourth or fifth starter,” per Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com. That seemed to leave the door open to further additions bumping him out of the starting staff, but those never came. The Nats had a fairly quiet winter, which left Williams to open in the rotation alongside Gore, Gray, Corbin and Jake Irvin.
So far, that’s working out great for both Williams and the Nats. Through seven starts and 36 2/3 innings, he has just a 1.96 ERA. His 21.1% strikeout rate is still a bit below average but is a big jump from last year. He’s getting ground balls at a 49% rate and hasn’t yet allowed a home run this season.
There are some caveats to keep in mind here. Seven starts is obviously a small sample size and it’s incredibly unlikely he can continue posting results this strong. His .270 batting average on balls in play and 79.5% strand rate are both a bit on the fortunate side, as his his 0% home run per fly ball rate. His 2.50 FIP and 4.04 SIERA both suggest he hasn’t been quite as good as the 1.96 ERA…
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