WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- On the first day of Nationals Spring Training, president of baseball operations Paul Toboni was asked about the possibility of adding a starting pitcher with Major League experience to the young team.
“I'll tell you that we're actively looking at it,” Toboni said on Tuesday. “Whether we make a move or not, TBD. But we’re keeping our options open here. And if we come across something that we really like, great. And if not, we have a good group here.”
The following afternoon, the Nationals reached an agreement with 10-year veteran right-hander Miles Mikolas on a Major League contract, per a source. The team has not confirmed the deal, which was first reported by Jake Mintz of Yahoo Sports.
The Nationals have a competition for the starting rotation after trading ace MacKenzie Gore to the Rangers last month. They entered camp with Jake Irvin, Cade Cavalli, Foster Griffin, Brad Lord and Mitchell Parker vying for spots. Josiah Gray also hopes to be cleared to return from Tommy John surgery for the start of the season. Trevor Williams, who has a decade of big league experience, is on the 60-day injured list (right elbow strain).
“Consistency, always showing up, being the same person day in and day out,” manager Blake Butera said of what he values in a starting pitcher on Tuesday. “As you know, it's a long season. There's a lot of ups and downs. No one's going to be this way throughout performance-wise, so just being the same person, consistency [is important].”
Mikolas, 37, has been a source of durability in recent years. From 2022-25, he joined Dylan Cease, Kevin Gausman and Logan Webb as the only pitchers to start more than 30 games in each season, and his 130 total starts over that span tied Cease for second behind Webb’s 132. Even after missing all of 2020 and much of '21 with an arm injury, Mikolas is one of 12 pitchers to make at least 200 starts since 2018.
Last season, Nationals starters pitched the third-fewest innings among all rotations. Their 1,423 1/3 frames were ahead of only the White Sox (1,416) and Rockies (1,407 1/3).
Yet Mikolas also will enter 2026 looking to rebound with his four Major League club. In 2022, he made his second NL All-Star team, posting a 3.29 ERA across 202 1/3 innings. Since then, he has a 4.98 ERA across 529 1/3 innings.
This past season, his seventh with the Cardinals, Mikolas made 31 starts and went 8-11 with a 4.84 ERA. His strength was avoiding free passes, as his 5.5% walk rate ranked in the 89th percentile among MLB pitchers. However, his 14.9% strikeout rate ranked in the fourth percentile.
Mikolas has resurrected his career before. A seventh-round pick by the Padres in the 2009 Draft, he made it up to San Diego in 2012 but struggled to gain a strong foothold in MLB over parts of three seasons with the Padres and Rangers. It took a highly successful three-season stint with the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball for Mikolas to find himself as a pitcher.
He returned and signed a two-year deal with the Cardinals during the 2017-18 offseason, making an immediate impact in ‘18 (18-4, 2.83 ERA), when he made his first All-Star team and finished sixth in the NL Cy Young Award voting. Mikolas ultimately signed two different contract extensions to remain in St. Louis, where he ranks 12th on the franchise’s all-time list for starts (203).
Mikolas will now call Nationals Park home, where he has pitched 38 2/3 innings over his career. He is 5-2 with a 2.79 ERA and two home runs allowed in six starts (seven games total) in Washington, D.C.
Mikolas is the second pitcher with St. Louis ties acquired by the Nats in as many days. On Tuesday, the Nationals traded for right-handed reliever Andre Granillo.