In late March, the Nationals traded a young catcher named Boston Smith for an Australian infielder named Curtis Mead, who had been solidly below-average in 488 career plate appearances — and was just designated for assignment by the White Sox, a team that lost 102 games in 2025. And then late Saturday night, the Nats flipped Mead to the Red Sox for left-handed pitcher Connelly Early, which was both their first trade deadline deal and a clear self-assessment for the new front office and coaching staff.
They are feeling very, very good about the organization’s ability to develop hitting — and particularly power — in the majors and minors. They have every reason to, too, given that Mead went from floating in the ether to having a breakout year, including 17 home runs in less than four months. Players up and down the Nats’ major league roster are also tracking toward career highs in homers, if they aren’t there already. Which is all why it made perfect sense to trade from a position of strength (bats) to improve a glaring weakness (arms). (ESPN first reported the Mead-Early trade.)
Some more top-line details: Early is only 24 and will be under team control for another five years after this one (through 2031). Mead, 25, is controllable through 2030. Early has been on the injured list since July 1 with left elbow inflammation, which underscores the inherent risk of swapping a hitter for a pitcher who’s never thrown more than 104 innings at any level. But the Nats’ front office is intimately familiar with him, seeing that Paul Toboni, the team’s first-year president of baseball operations, was a key decision maker when Boston drafted Early in 2023, as was Devin Pearson, now one of Toboni’s assistant general managers in Washington. (Toboni has now done two deals with his former club.)