Matt Waldron just changed teams for the third time in a month, and this might actually be the landing spot where the knuckleballer gets a real shot.
The Washington Nationals announced Saturday that they claimed the right-hander off waivers from the Toronto Blue Jays. To create the 40-man roster spot, Connelly Early was moved from the 15-day injured list to the 60-day IL.
The tour of the American League has been brutal. Waldron was designated for assignment by the San Diego Padres in late July after struggling to a 7.54 ERA across 37 innings. The Blue Jays claimed him a week later. Four appearances and 4.1 innings later, he was DFA’d again with a 10.38 ERA in a Toronto uniform. Now he heads to a Nationals team desperate enough for arms to give him another look.
Here’s why this move actually makes sense for Washington. The Nationals are 30 games out of first place. They have nothing to lose by throwing a knuckleballer into the rotation and seeing what happens over five or six starts down the stretch. Innings are innings, and Waldron has thrown better in the minors than his big league line suggests.
Waldron is 29 years old and MLB’s only active knuckleball pitcher. That fact alone makes him worth a project. The pitch takes years to master, and organizations that show patience with knuckleballers have historically been rewarded. Just ask what the Red Sox got from Tim Wakefield after Pittsburgh gave up on him.
The Nationals aren’t going to develop the next Wakefield in six weeks. But they have starting rotation innings to give away, they have a young coaching staff that isn’t allergic to weird solutions, and they have zero pressure to win in September. This is exactly the kind of low-risk gamble a rebuilding club should be making in August.
Verdict: Waldron gets three or four starts in the Washington rotation before the season ends. If he flashes anything close to competency, the Nationals tender him a contract for 2027 and give him a real shot in spring training. If he continues to struggle, they move on and try the next weird arm. That’s how rebuilds work.
The bigger story here is what it says about the pitching market. Teams are so hungry for innings that a pitcher with a 7.54 ERA gets claimed off waivers twice in three weeks. Every organization is scraping the barrel for arms that can eat innings without destroying the bullpen. Waldron fits that description on the good days.
The knuckleball novelty helps too. Fans in Washington will actually show up to see the last knuckleballer in the sport start a game. That’s a marketing win even if the pitching results are shaky.
Waldron’s next start with the Nationals is one to circle. Either the knuckle dances and a career gets saved, or he ends up on waivers again by mid-September. Baseball’s cruelest position is one bad month away from another zip code.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
