The new baseball season will bring a new look to the broadcast booth, as MASN and the Nationals have announced Kevin Frandsen as the new color commentator for Nats broadcasts this year. Frandsen will join play-by-play announcer Bob Carpenter in the MASN broadcast booth for the 2022 campaign after spending the last four seasons as a member of the Phillies radio broadcast team. "Thrilled is an understatement for the way I feel right now," said Frandsen in a released statement. "I'd like to...

The Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) and Washington Nationals today named former player Kevin Frandsen as the network's color commentator for Nationals television coverage. Frandsen joins the MASN booth after four seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies radio broadcast. He was a member of Washington's 2014 National League East Division championship team during his Major League playing career, which also included stops in San Francisco (2006-09, 2015), Los Angeles (AL) (2010) and Philadelphia...

The Nationals on Thursday morning announced the scheduled game times for the upcoming regular season. First pitch for opening day against the Mets at Citi Field is scheduled for a 1:10 p.m. start on Thursday, March 31. Both subsequent games of the opening series on Saturday and Sunday are also starting at 1:10 p.m., possibly including the first time Max Scherzer faces the Nats as a member of the Mets. The home opener at Nationals Park is scheduled for a 1:05 p.m. first pitch against the...

Whenever the Nationals actually report to West Palm Beach, there will be plenty of position battles to dissect. You can pretty much go right up the middle of the field. Will Keibert Ruiz get a strong hold of the starting catcher's spot? Who will fill out the back ends of both the rotation and bullpen? Who will start in the middle part of the infield? Can Victor Robles earn his spot in center field back from Lane Thomas? You can even throw in questions about Carter Kieboom at third base. But...

For just the third time since Baseball America started releasing top 100 prospect lists in 1990, the Orioles had five players in the initial top 100 of the year when the newest list came out on Wednesday. We say initial top 100 because now these lists are tweaked and changed often during the year. Some outlets, including Baseball America, move players in and out as they "graduate" and lose prospect and rookie eligibility. There was once a time when outlets released one list per year and a...

When the Orioles acquired pitcher Garrett Stallings from the Angels in the José Iglesias trade on Dec. 2, 2020, there were no professional starts to sift through. No professional data to digest. Executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias knew Stallings from the University of Tennessee, targeting him in the previous year's draft before the Angels selected him in the fifth round. Elias kept tabs on the right-hander while Los Angeles shut him down that summer and COVID-19 forced the...

What's better than a midweek mailbag? Basically anything, but it's not up to me to supply the questions here. That's your job. The fans have spoken - or written. They won't be ignored or put in the corner. I present to you the latest sequel to the original. You ask, I answer, you ask again, I answer again. It's the same old story, same old song and dance, my friend. We don't edit for anything. What you send is what I post. OK, maybe a word or a comma ends up on the cutting room...

It's an assumption - but probably a pretty safe assumption - that right-hander Jordan Lyles is not only a rotation candidate for the 2022 Orioles, but he is very likely to be a key member of their rotation. This is why the club agreed with the free agent pitcher on a one-year deal for $7 million right before the lockout, and the Orioles hold a team option on his 2023 contract. Lyles went 10-13 with a 5.15 ERA for Texas last season. And that produced an ERA+ of 85 for last year or 15 percent...

This was always going to be an important offseason for the Nationals. Not in terms of signing big-name free agents or making a big splash on the trade market, but in terms of making significant changes and improvements on the minor league side to start this first full year of the rebuild off on the right foot. They have already signed a handful of veteran players to minor league deals to potentially help the major league roster and add depth to the upper levels of the farm system. They signed a...

The Nationals announced their 2022 minor league player development staff on Tuesday, with 14 new roles and more than 20 new members. This completes the process this offseason of completely revamping the department as the Nationals focus more on the growth of their minor league players during the first year of what is hoped to be a quick rebuild. General manager Mike Rizzo hinted at these changes coming to the organization during his press conference on the last day of the regular season. "We...