Former Nationals Utility Man, 2017 WBC Champion Josh Harrison Retires

The Washington Nationals have been in a tough place for a few seasons now, but 2025 is the best things have felt in a while.

Fielding a roster full of young talent that is working on developing into a coherent group is where they stand at the moment in their rebuilding process.

The rebuild has taken longer than anticipated due to some poor decisions, and a mixed bag when it comes to roster moves that have been made.

The worst part is only a little while ago, this team was competitive, winning the World Series in 2019 before five straight seasons of below .500 play. They have had some luck with talent in that span though, bringing in free agents who have panned out, just not at the right time. One such player is Josh Harrison, who showed immense promise for the team before being traded away after a year and a half.

Ultimately, only a few seasons after being traded, he has decided to hang up the cleats and retire from the MLB, as he announced via a social media post on Saturday morning. A member of the 2017 World Baseball Classic-winning roster, he had a strong 13-year career in the MLB and will now step away from the game.

Harrison's Nationals career was a pretty impressive one all things considered, especially his 2021 campaign before being traded. While he only had a small sample size in 2020 due to the COVID-shortened season, he looked solid in his available playing time.

But 2021 is when things began to show up for him once again after a few tough years elsewhere.

In 90 games with Washington in 2021, he slashed .294/.366/.434 with 38 RBI, 39 runs, six home runs, five stolen bases, a 120 OPS+ and 50 strikeouts to 25 walks. This was one of the best showings of his career following his dominant 2017 season.

The Nationals ended up cashing in on it rather than retaining him, trading him to the then-Oakland Athletics where Harrison and Yan Gomes were dealt in return for Drew Millas, Seth Shuman and Richard Guasch.

Millas has been a borderline MLB-level talent for the team, Shuman has remained in the minor leagues working on his development and Guasch now pitches for Rieleros de Aguascalientes in the Mexican League.

The return value did not end up becoming a huge package, but at the end of the day, Harrison was fun to watch for the team back when he was with them, and showed he still had it at 33 years old in 2021.