Overview
- Nationals manager Blake Butera announced Friday that the team is beginning a gradual move that will shift C.J. Abrams off shortstop and toward a regular role at second base.
- Butera said Abrams will still appear at shortstop occasionally during the transition and that the move will become full-time once he is comfortable at second.
- Abrams is one of the club’s best hitters this season, but defensive metrics cited by reporters have shown him as a below-average shortstop, which the team cited in explaining the change.
- Nasim Nuñez has been named the regular shortstop and brings better defensive marks and elite base-stealing to the role, even though his offensive numbers are weaker than Abrams’s.
- The club offered no firm timetable for the switch, so the next things to watch are Abrams’s defensive reps at second, how Nuñez holds up at shortstop, and whether the move reshapes the Nationals’ late-season lineup decisions.