Nationals Sign Jesse Winker To Minor League Deal

The Nationals have signed Jesse Winker to a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training, reports Andrew Golden of The Washington Post. Winker is represented by Excel Sports Management.

Winker, 30, is not too far removed from being one of the better hitters in the league but he’s fallen on hard times recently as injuries have seemingly held him back. With the Reds from 2017 to 2021, he walked in 12% of his plate appearances while only going down on strikes 16.5% of the time.

His .288/.385/.504 slash line in that time translates to a wRC+ of 132, indicating he was 32% better than the league average in those five years. Among players with at least 1500 plate appearances over those years, only 24 had a higher wRC+.