Final evening, precisely one week earlier than they’re slated to make the primary general decide within the 2025 draft, the Nationals fired president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and supervisor Dave Martinez. After ESPN’s Jeff Passan broke the information, the staff introduced assistant basic supervisor Mike DeBartolo will function interim GM. Bench coach Miguel Cairo was named interim supervisor this afternoon.
Rumors that Rizzo and Martinez would possibly lastly be on the recent seat had made the rounds over the previous a number of weeks, however the timing is lower than ideally suited. In accordance with Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the final time a staff fired its GM earlier than the commerce deadline was when the Twins removed Terry Ryan on July 18, 2016. USA As we speak’s Bob Nightengale offered an evidence, reporting that each Rizzo and Martinez had contract choices for 2026, with mid-July deadlines for these selections. Even for a franchise that simply fired its POBO and supervisor, it’s a foul look to let cash dictate the timing of the choice when a lot is at stake.
The son of a scout and a Twenty eighth-round draft decide in 1982, Rizzo spent three years within the minors and 12 as a scout. He turned the Diamondbacks’ scouting director in 1998 and moved to Washington as an assistant GM in 2006, the staff’s first rent after the Lerner household purchased the franchise. Rizzo was named interim GM in March 2009, after Jim Bowden resigned within the midst of a bonus-skimming scandal. The staff eliminated the interim tag in August, and Rizzo went on to change into the sport’s third-longest tenured GM. The Nationals completed in final place in each 2009 and 2010, giving them 5 last-place finishes over their first six years in D.C.
These lean years gave the Nationals the primary general decide in each 2009 and 2010, drafts that featured slam dunk prime decisions in Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper. Rizzo handed out his first main free agent deal earlier than the 2011 season, signing outfielder Jayson Werth for seven years and $126 million. On the time, the contract was seen as a wild overpay, but it surely was supposed as a press release. The Nationals have been able to compete, and so they needed to announce that intention to potential free brokers.
They crawled to 1 recreation under .500 in 2011, then ran the perfect file in baseball the next yr. It was their first postseason look since they relocated to Washington earlier than the 2005 season and simply their second in franchise historical past; the primary got here in 1981, when the Expos took benefit of the strike-interrupted marketing campaign to succeed in the playoffs regardless of not ending with the perfect general file within the NL East. From 2012 to 2019, the Nationals received 730 video games, second solely to the Dodgers, and Rizzo turned identified for taking large dangers. Below his management, the Nats signed Max Scherzer for large cash and swung a three-team commerce to get Trea Turner (as a participant to be named later). In 2018, they known as up a 19-year-old Juan Soto after simply 340 minor league plate appearances and let Harper stroll to a division rival when he turned a free agent after that season. They grabbed high-upside prospects who solely fell to them within the draft due to issues about accidents, make-up, or signability that scared off different groups.
For all their regular-season success, the Nationals couldn’t recover from the hump or discover a long-term supervisor for the majority of the 2010s. Jim Riggleman took over for Manny Acta in 2009, however in a transfer that had some echoes final evening, Riggleman resigned abruptly in June 2011. On a one-year contract for the third straight yr, he lastly bought the staff over .500 and demanded to know whether or not his contract possibility for 2012 could be picked up. Stated Rizzo on the time, “I felt that the time wasn’t proper for me to select up the choice, and positively as we speak’s dialog put to me in the way in which it was put to me, you definitely can’t make that call in a knee-jerk response. It’s too large of a choice.”
Riggleman stop. Davey Johnson stuffed in, however wasn’t anticipated to be a long-term resolution. Matt Williams lasted two seasons, by no means fairly clicking with the membership. The Nationals agreed to rent Bud Black as supervisor, however that fell aside after they lowballed him with a one-year supply. Dusty Baker led the staff to back-to-back division titles in 2016 and 2017, with Recreation 5 defeats within the NLDS annually, however Rizzo let him go as effectively, bringing in Martinez.
Martinez spent 16 years within the majors with 9 franchises (together with the Expos), then served as bench coach for the Rays and the Cubs. The Nationals missed the playoffs in 2018, simply barely ending above .500. When Martinez lastly led the staff to the championship 2019, it was now not as a juggernaut. The Nationals sneaked into the postseason with a Wild Card berth and went the space in each the NLDS and World Collection. Martinez pressed Patrick Corbin into reduction responsibility between begins to cowl for a bullpen bereft of dependable lefties.
They have been top-heavy, too. Whereas Rizzo was constructing the Nationals right into a championship-caliber staff, the remainder of the league was catching as much as him. Washington lagged behind as analytics got here to complement or supplant conventional scouting and participant growth. Consequently, the group turned a cautionary story. “In latest instances,” Jarrett Seidler wrote within the 2023 Baseball Prospectus Annual, “the Nationals have systematically overvalued hitters who look good by conventional scouting strategies — sweet-looking swings, good exhibits of energy in batting observe, old-school notions of bodily projectability — whereas ignoring evident flaws uncovered by analytics — poor in-zone contact charges, low exit velocities, excessive chase charges.” They overvalued fastball velocity and undervalued fastball form. They’re nonetheless one of many solely groups within the recreation and not using a Trajekt Arc pitching machine.
That’s to not say Rizzo didn’t acknowledge his personal shortcomings. Twice up to now few years, the Nationals have publicly introduced they have been going to alter how they did issues and get on board with the analytical revolution. The second proclamation occurred earlier than the 2024 season, and it got here with sweeping modifications within the scouting and participant growth departments. Rizzo actually did attempt to catch up. It simply hasn’t appeared to work.
The Nationals have picked the unsuitable gamers and so they’ve didn’t develop them, leaving the cabinet naked. The desk under exhibits the staff’s first-round picks throughout Rizzo’s tenure, together with the WAR they put up for the franchise. It should take time to see what the staff will get from more moderen picks, however the drop-off after Anthony Rendon in 2011 is staggering. From 2012 on, the staff’s first-round picks have put up a mixed -1.1 WAR with Washington.
Mike Rizzo’s First-Spherical Picks
Issues fell aside following the 2019 season. Corbin was a pumpkin, whereas thoracic outlet syndrome successfully ended Strasburg’s profession simply after he signed a seven-year deal. Thrilling younger gamers like Victor Robles, Michael A. Taylor, Carter Kieboom, and Tanner Rainey stopped wanting so thrilling, and the farm system didn’t maintain any younger gamers who might fill in. So the Nationals determined to embrace the rebuild forward of the 2021 commerce deadline, once they despatched away Scherzer and Turner for prospects; a yr later, they swapped Soto for extra prospects. The staff has solely spent cash so as to web extra prospects, signing veterans on one-year offers and hoping to flip them on the deadline. In 2022, Mark Lerner introduced the household would look to promote the staff, then modified his thoughts. Over the previous six seasons – in different phrases, because the day after the 2019 World Collection – solely the Rockies have a worse file than the Nationals.
That brings us again to the unique query. Why transfer on from Rizzo and Martinez proper now? Any time over the previous few years would have been simply justifiable. As I wrote within the 2024 BP Annual, the Nationals turned the one staff because the Philadelphia Athletics beneath Connie Mack to file 4 straight last-place seasons with out firing both their supervisor or their GM. Not solely that, however they gave each Martinez and Rizzo contract extensions earlier than the 2024 season, for which they have been rewarded with a refreshing fourth-place end. You possibly can argue that no staff has ever been so affected person.
It could possibly’t actually be as a result of the staff has been a disappointment this yr. Earlier than the season, we had the Nationals with a projected profitable proportion of .444. They’re at the moment at .411. At most, you possibly can say they’re underperforming their expectations by three losses.
Washington clearly held comparable expectations. In February, Mark Lerner revealed the Nationals wouldn’t be spending cash on gamers as a result of Rizzo didn’t suppose they have been able to compete. “When Mike calls me in and says, ‘We actually want to consider it,’ for subsequent winter, we’ll speak about it,” he stated. “Proper now, he doesn’t suppose – and I agree with him: There’s no level in getting a celebrity and paying him a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to win two or three extra video games. You’ve bought to attend till – like Jayson [Werth]. Jayson was proper on the cusp of [the team] being actually good, and it took us to the following stage.”
This was, in its approach, a vote of confidence for Rizzo. Lerner has clearly modified his thoughts within the final 5 months. It’s potential that he figured he’d give Rizzo and Martinez one final shot to determine issues out within the first half. However even when that have been the case, this doesn’t seem to be the proper second. This season has already had a reasonably clear all-time low. It got here from June 7 via 18, when the staff went via an 11-game shedding streak, with six of these losses coming by the hands of the lowly Marlins and Rockies. That’s additionally when Martinez made headlines for feedback that defended his teaching employees a bit too vigorously, leaving the impression that he was blaming the gamers as a substitute. It’s laborious to think about any logical rationale for altering issues now quite than two weeks in the past.
The timing can be awkward for the franchise as a complete. The staff has been rebuilding for years now, and the brand new, younger core has arrived within the type of James Wooden, MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, Luis García Jr., and Dylan Crews. Sadly, the brand new, younger core is neither younger sufficient nor ok to construct round. The Nationals are as soon as once more in final place within the division. They don’t have any pitching, and so they’re under alternative stage at first base, catcher, and proper subject. García and Gore are of their first yr of arbitration and are solely beneath contract for 2 extra years. Abrams will enter arbitration subsequent yr. That leaves simply Wooden and Crews beneath contract previous 2028. Whoever takes over this franchise must navigate some tough selections. They might effectively begin by initiating one more rebuild.
They might even be taking up a job that’s messier than we understand. Within the Washington Publish, Barry Svrluga painted an image of a company and not using a decision-making course of: “Ted Lerner died in February 2023. Even earlier than that, his son, Mark, had served because the membership’s level particular person. However the actuality is that selections have been made by a gaggle – Ted Lerner’s sons-in-law, Edward Cohen and Robert Tanenbaum, in addition to his daughters, Debra Cohen and Marla Tanenbaum. A 3rd technology – Ted’s grandkids – is usually concerned. There’s a herding-cats factor to all of it, and it may make it laborious to search out consensus, with a person determination in addition to an general route.” Rizzo bolstered that notion with a textual content message to Svrluga final evening: “The solar will come up tomorrow,” he wrote. “That’s the job. I had a fantastic run. Navigated that possession group for nearly 20 years.”
Rizzo and Martinez can have difficult legacies in Washington. It’s laborious to place an excessive amount of blame on Martinez. He inherited a great staff that underperformed a bit in his first season, then steered what might need been a less-talented roster to a World Collection title, an achievement that required some deft tactical maneuvers. In recent times, he’s led a staff that no supervisor might’ve was a winner. The Nationals have been sloppy by way of baserunning and protection, however till his feedback just a few weeks in the past, he’d additionally averted any main missteps. Earlier than he arrived, Washington’s managers averaged lower than two years apiece. Because the franchise moved to Washington, he has essentially the most video games managed, essentially the most wins, and the one championship. However he additionally has the second-lowest profitable proportion.
Rizzo inherited one of many worst groups in baseball, constructed it into top-of-the-line, received a championship, then oversaw its return to the very backside. No matter how issues ended, it’s not laborious to argue that he deserves a statue outdoors Nationals Park. His tried rebuild was too little too late, but it surely’s there. We will see it. He’s the man who signed Juan Soto as an novice in 2015 and the man who traded Soto for James Wooden in 2022.
As for the Nationals, it’s most likely time for a brand new regime. The large league membership isn’t able to compete, and as Eric Longenhagen wrote earlier as we speak, the farm system remains to be under common. Virginia native Thad Levine, who parted methods with the Twins in October, has already been talked about as a risk to steer the entrance workplace. However within the meantime, any individual’s going to need to determine whom to draft first on Sunday.
