MLB Trade Rumors dropped the news that the Nationals designated right-hander Justin Lawrence for assignment, opening a roster spot in a Washington bullpen that's been shuffling arms all summer. For a guy with a genuinely nasty low-slot arsenal, Lawrence has spent 2026 bouncing around the league like a hot potato nobody wants to hold for long.
MLB Trade Rumors broke the DFA news that sends Lawrence back onto waivers.
This is not new territory for Lawrence. He spent his first 4 big league seasons entirely with the Rockies before getting claimed off waivers by the Pirates in March 2025. Pittsburgh designated him for assignment in May, he landed with the Twins on a cash deal, got DFA'd again in Minnesota, and the Nationals scooped him off waivers on June 24 to fill out their bullpen. Now, less than a month later, he's right back on the wire.
The sidearm delivery is the reason teams keep taking flyers on him — it's a funky look for hitters and the raw stuff has always graded out. But command has been the recurring issue, and his career splits are almost comically extreme: a 3.86 ERA on the road for his career against a 6.96 mark at Coors Field, a gap that tracked him even after he left Colorado.
For Washington, this is roster math more than headline news. The Nats are buried in the NL East race and are almost certainly going to be sellers, not buyers, as the trade deadline approaches, which means every reliever on an expiring or replaceable contract is a candidate to get squeezed out for younger arms. Lawrence, out of minor league options and without a long track record of success anywhere, was an easy body to move for a team focused on evaluating what it actually wants to keep past this season.
What happens next is standard DFA procedure: Lawrence clears waivers, gets claimed by another club looking for cheap bullpen depth, or gets outrighted to the minors if nobody bites. Given how many times he's already been claimed this year, it wouldn't be shocking to see a 5th team roll the dice on the sidearm stuff before September call-ups even arrive.