Millas made a mark, but the Swansea native eyes a bigger role with Nationals
In the last 10 months, Drew Millas has gotten married, bought his first house and recorded his first .300-plus hitting season in Major League Baseball.
The Swansea native and former Belleville East Lancer has already made it to “The Show.” Now, he’s living “The Life.”
Next year, however, will be pivotal in determining just how long Millas might enjoy life in the world’s top baseball league. While he hit .306 for the Washington Nationals this past season, he has yet to establish himself as the team’s starting catcher.
A broken finger near the end of the Nationals’ season curtailed what had been his best year in the majors. But the finger is healed now, and Millas sounds confident about what the next 10 months – and beyond – might bring.
“Obviously, from my point of view, I think I deserve it,” Millas said, when asked about an opportunity to play more with Washington in 2026. “I think I’ve worked hard enough and shown what I can do at the major league level. I’ve been in the big leagues for a cumulative time of one year, so I have a year of service time under my belt and have an idea of what pitchers are going to do to me, and how the game’s speed is, because it does change coming from the minors.
“But I think this last year, after the call-up, everything slowed down for me. If I can maintain that feeling, hopefully I can carry that momentum into the season and get more playing time. My goal is to get the starting job.”
The 27-year-old played in 18 games for the Nationals in 2025, hitting .306 with 15 hits in 49 at-bats, including six runs and seven RBIs. His season was cut short in late August because of a shattered knuckle.
“I basically didn’t have a finger for a couple months, but now I’m getting the full range of motion back and hopefully can start hitting in a couple of days,” Millas said.
As a catcher, he threw out two runners in six base-stealing attempts and had a .966 fielding percentage. In parts of three seasons with the Nationals, Millas has played 49 games with 134 at-bats and holds a .276 career average.
Millas, who graduated from Belleville East in 2016, is in the process of building a house in Jupiter, Florida, about a 20-minute drive from the Nationals’ spring training facility in West Palm Beach. Last December, he married his wife, Ashley.
Millas played three sports at Belleville East.
“I think it became apparent to me that baseball was where I had the most talent. I think I had a good sense of the game,” Millas said. “I think that’s where I had a leg up on others, because I’m very competitive and know the little things that help you win games.
“But I never really had the major leagues in mind during my time at Belleville East. I actually almost played football at Missouri State coming out of high school. But I think I knew I was best at baseball, and Missouri State told me my senior year that I would start for them as a freshman, which is a pretty big deal.”
Millas hasn’t forgotten his Belleville roots. He lived in the area in the offseason until recently and has returned at times to Belleville East to speak to players on the Lancers baseball team, coached by Ryan Wiggs, who led Millas during his senior year.
“Drew has been absolutely awesome to our program since he left,” Wiggs said. “He’s met with our entire program and also worked with some of our players individually.”
Millas credits Wiggs for his success, but gives even more credit to his late grandfather, Larry — a legendary coach at East — for teaching him the most about baseball, along with his father, Andy.
Millas is slated to earn $820,000 next season with Washington after making $760,000 this year. He has earned more than $1 million in his MLB career, which is enough to buy a nice house in Jupiter or most anywhere else.
But, again, he knows the importance of this next season.
At 27 (he turns 28 in January), he’s not old, but he knows there are plenty of hungry younger players out there, just like he was coming out of Missouri State as a seventh-round (224th overall) pick of the Oakland Athletics in 2019.
“I’ve continued down a path, to where I am now. I went through a lot of hardships this year, in Triple-A,” Millas said. “I thought I’d have a good shot this year at the big leagues, and just I felt like I didn’t get that with the old staff that we had. It might have been a little frustrating, sure, but at the same time, when I got called up the last time, I realized kind of what they were doing with me, and I ended up taking advantage of that shot that I got.”
