Carl Edwards Jr.

The former Cubs reliever got the save in his first game back against his former team in Chicago in a 6-5 Washington win.

WASHINGTON — It’s easy to forget amid Carl Edwards Jr.’s emergence as one of the Nationals’ most reliable bullpen arms that he entered last offseason with a lot of uncertainty about the direction of his career. The 30-year-old appeared in just 12 games for three different...

From 2016-2018, Carl Edwards Jr. played a pivotal role in Joe Maddon’s bullpen – making 167 appearances and working to a 3.03 ERA / 3.12 FIP. But since the Cubs traded him halfway through the 2019 campaign, the lanky right-hander has failed to find any sort of success at all. Now, after inking a minor league deal with the Washington Nationals, he’ll look to get back on track in 2022.

The Washington Nationals desperately need to find answers in their bullpen. Their relief corps has been an ongoing problem over the past few seasons; even when the Nationals won the World Series, they needed to completely overhaul their bullpen in the middle of the year. That did not work nearly as well in 2020 or 2021.

GThe 2021 season for right-hander Carl Edwards Jr. was a winding path full of starts and stops. A right-handed power arm, Edwards looked like he could be an intriguing possibility for the bullpen if he could somehow harness his potential. There wasn’t a whole lot of success along the way, but it is an interesting story.