Major questions linger for Ruiz after difficult season

PLAYER REVIEW: KEIBERT RUIZ

Age on Opening Day 2026: 27

How acquired: Traded with Josiah Gray, Donovan Casey and Gerardo Carrillo from Dodgers for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, July 2021

MLB service time: 4 years, 64 days

2025 salary: $6 million

Contract status: Signed for $5 million in 2026, $5 million in 2027, $7 million in 2028, $9 million in 2029, $9 million in 2030, $12 million club option in 2031, $14 million club option in 2032.

2025 stats: 68 G, 267 PA, 255 AB, 19 R, 63 H, 12 2B, 0 3B, 2 HR, 25 RBI, 0 SB, 2 CS, 8 BB, 26 SO, .247 AVG, .277 OBP, .318 SLG, .595 OPS, 69 OPS+, 1 DRS, 0.8 bWAR, -1.0 fWAR

Quotable: “It’s really frustrating that I’ve been dealing with this for what, two months? But I feel obviously better than the first time I got hit. I’m just trusting in god that everything’s going to be alright.” – Keibert Ruiz

2025 analysis: Few players on the Nationals entered the season under more scrutiny than Ruiz. In the wake of a frustrating 2024, he was under real pressure to get off to a good start and leave no question about his status as the club’s long-term No. 1 catcher. And when he homered in each of the season’s first two games and sported a .329 batting average and .839 OPS in late-April, things were looking really good for him.

Ruiz, though, could not sustain that production, nor anything close to it. Over his next 46 games, he batted a paltry .211 with a .489 OPS. He continued to swing wildly and make weak contact. And he continued to rank near the bottom of the league in most defensive categories, aside from some improvement in his caught stealing rate.

Then came a freak and fateful incident June 23 in San Diego. While standing in the dugout, Ruiz took a ricocheted foul ball off the side of his head. He was eventually diagnosed with a concussion, and he was never the same. The Nats did activate off the concussion IL a week and a half later, but he took another foul ball off his mask in his second game back and was placed on the concussion IL again.

After a long, slow recovery process, Ruiz was cleared to go on a minor league rehab assignment in early-September. But in his third game with Double-A Harrisburg, he again was struck on the mask by a foul ball and was pulled off the rehab assignment by the club and ultimately shut down for the season.

2026 outlook: There’s a huge question mark surrounding Ruiz heading into the offseason, and the Nationals’ new decision-makers have to figure out how they’re going to handle his complicated situation.

First things first: Ruiz needs to be deemed healthy enough to continue playing. The hope is that a full winter away from baseball will allow him to heal and come to spring training ready to go. But there has to be some lingering concern what might happen if (or, more appropriately, when) he gets struck in the head again behind the plate. Ruiz has made it clear he wants to continue catching and has no desire to change positions at this stage of his career. Will the Nats let him do that?

If he’s healthy and able to play, the next question becomes about Ruiz’s performance. Can he finally start hitting with some consistency and get the job done defensively as well? There’s 474 games of big league track record that suggests he may not have that in him. At some point, he is what he is.

Even in a perfect world, the Nationals have to understand Ruiz can’t be counted on to catch 120 games next season. They need to have someone else who can at least split the job with him, whether someone internally (Riley Adams, Jorge Alfaro, Drew Millas) or externally. But they also must deal with the elephant in the room: Ruiz’s contract. He’s still guaranteed about $37 million over the next five years. Does that commitment hinder their options at a catching position that clearly needs to be improved?




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