The Nats once fearsome offense is now searching for answers. They only scored 20 runs across their 9 game road trip. The team is in desperate need of any spark. If they don’t want to bring up Seaver King, Trey Lipscomb is another player who deserves a shot.
Entering the 2024 season, Lipscomb had a lot of hype going into the year. He had a solid year in the minors and was pushing Luis Garcia Jr. for the starting second base job out of camp. Lipscomb did not make the team, but quickly got promoted following
an injury.
Simply put, Lipscomb fell on his face in his first MLB stint. He hit just .200 with a .500 OPS in 61 games. After that disastrous spell in the show, Lipscomb faded into oblivion. He only posted a .697 OPS in AAA last year. That resulted in the then 25 year old being DFA’d and going unclaimed.
Having gone unclaimed, Lipscomb was back in the Nats system. However, as Rochester manager Matt LeCroy put it, Lipscomb had suffered a setback. This offseason, Lipscomb worked on becoming twitchier and more athletic. That work has really paid off as he is swinging the bat faster and hitting the ball harder.
The improvements in Lipscomb’s quality of contact is pretty crazy. Last season, his average exit velocity was 86.2 MPH, his 90th percentile EV was 103.6 and his max EV was 109.7. This year those numbers have jumped to 89.9, 105.4 and 114.4, a truly remarkable increase for a player who is not that young.
Predictably, the increase in exit velocities has come with a serious boost in power. Lipscomb has 27 home runs in 110 games this season, the most in the Nats system. Before this year, he had 30 homers in 339 MILB games. The 26 year old has just added a whole new element to his game.
With the way the Nats infielders are hitting right now, I think it is worth giving Lipscomb a shot even if there are some concerns. When you look at his profile, there is one pretty massive red flag. Lipscomb’schase rate this year is 43.2%, which is really bad. For context, even the free swinging Luis Garcia Jr. is only chasing 38.4% of the time.
There is a pretty good chance that this flaw is just totally debilitating at the MLB level and Lipscomb is just one of those Quad-A guys. However, the Nats are in a position to find this out for sure down the stretch. We know what Jorbit Vivas and Nasim Nunez can do, why not give Lipscomb a shot. With his massive increase in power he has certainly earned it.
Lipscomb might be the most extreme example, but the Nats have done a phenomenal job unlocking power in the minor leagues this season. By my count, the Nats have 5 minor leaguers who are already at 20+ homers, which is very impressive. It really feels like this new regime specializes in adding power.
However, at the big league level it just feels like the Nats are stuck in the mud. With James Wood and CJ Abrams out, the Nats are in need of new blood who can energize this weary team for the last few weeks of the season. The Nats need to avoid total collapse, and calling up red hot and confident hitters like Trey Lipscomb could be part of the solution.
