The Washington Nationals FIRED Manager Davey Martinez And It Was The CORRECT Move!

The Washington Nationals FIRED Manager Davey Martinez And It Was The CORRECT Move!

The Washington Nationals have stunned the baseball world as they have fired president of baseball operations Mike Grizzo and manager Davey Martinez. And on today’s show, we talk about Dave Martinez and why it was the right decision. [Music] You are Locked on Nationals, your daily Washington Nationals podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. And thank you all for making Locked On Nationals your first listen every single day as we are free and available wherever you get your podcast. And of course, I am your host Ryan Clair. You can catch me over on Twitter, Ryan Clary1, and as well as our show page at l_nationals. For all your latest Nationals news and notes, make sure to check us out over on Twitter. Of course, look up Locked on Nationals wherever you get your podcast, whether it’s on Apple, Spotify, and of course, the video version over on YouTube. Again, just look up Locked On Nationals as we are part of the Locked On Network, where is your team every day. Later on in today’s show, we will be getting into how we got into this space here with the Nationals firing Dave Martinez on July 6 of 2025, just 6 years from winning a World Series in this town. And guys, it piled up overtime. We’ll have that discussion for you. But as we are just one day removed, the Washington Nationals, they look to add a new manager here in town because Dave Martinez is no more. And everybody, this was the right move at the right time for manager Dave Martinez. But this episode is brought to you by Monarch Money and take control of your finances with Monarch Money and use code locked on MLB at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. So yesterday, last night, the Washington Nationals made the stunning decision to fire not only Dave Martinez, but Mike Grizzo, the president of baseball operations. And on today’s show, we are going to be focusing on Dave Martinez. If you missed it yesterday, we talked about Mike Grizzo and really the stunning move that happened last night. But as far as Dave Martinez goes, this was the right decision. This was a manager who is a legend here in town, a 2019 World Series champion, but sometimes a move is needed. And at this point, Dave Martinez was a dead man walking. That’s really the only way that I could put it. If someone told me a month ago from today that Dave Martinez would have been fired a month ago, I would have said, “That checks out. That makes sense. I think right now when I heard that move yesterday, at first I was just like, “Oh my gosh, this is stunning.” I mean, this team has been a lot worse of situations over the past few seasons and they stuck by Dave Martinez. What changed? What move? Like, what made the learner say, “You know what? Now is the time.” And I can’t answer that question. The timing of this move with Dave Martinez is a little questionable, but I will say this, we all knew this was happening. We did know that this month that you could pick up Davy Martinez’s option for next season or you could decline it. And if you do decide to decline it, then I think we all kind of know what’s up next. Like, is Davey really going to be the man in charge knowing that he’s not going to be coming back over these next few months? Probably not. It would have been a lot easier for him to check out and say, “You know what? My work here is done. This team stinks and I’m going to check out.” I think the learners made this decision saying, “Listen, you are not coming back next season. this does not make sense to have you go out there for the next few months and just kind of simply check out on this team. This is a young exciting team at times that really just needs some new leadership. And as far as this team goes, if you’re going to have a manager at the helm of this thing say, “Well, what matters if I’m not coming back next year? This is no longer my team.” So, if you decide to not pick up that option, which I think a lot of people expected, then move off of him. That’s kind of my whole thought process with this at this point. And as far as what Davey has done over the years, I don’t think Dave Martinez deserves all the blame, of which the fans have credited him for because at this point, the fan base was done with David Martinez. They were ready to see Davey fired before the season started. And I think we all knew that if this season in 2025 went the way that it has, we all knew that a move would be coming. We all knew that there would have to be a fresh voice in the clubhouse. And that’s exactly what is happening today. You sit here after being swept by the Red Sox. You were at 37 wins and 53 losses and this team has taken a step back. This team right now has underperformed. This coaching staff in my opinion is a pretty poor pitching st coaching staff overall. The pitching staff is a whole another debacle. The hitting staff is a whole another dele as well. The coaching staff not special. It simply is not. 71 and 91 which we all thought was relatively successful. I think that it has proven so far that while yeah, you have been better at times, you have taken those steps back and while you do have a little bit more talent in the building, you simply are not winning enough games. You’re seeing teams like the Miami Marlins who seem to be deep into a rebuild at this point with not that bright of a future. They are blowing by the Washington Nationals. You look at some of the in-game decisions that we’ll get more into later on in today’s show and you kind of think to yourself, why are you doing this, Davey? When I first heard the news in yesterday, really after the Nationals got their teeth kicked in by the Boston Red Sox, I did not find myself necessarily that surprised. Was I surprised with the timing of everything? Yeah. Because again, last month you lost what, 11, 12 straight games and you’re thinking to yourself, when will they make a move? When will they finally say enough is enough? When will we finally have a new voice in this building? The Nationals ultimately decided to stick by Davy Martinez during the past month. And after losing against the Red Sox and having Porino Ogswara make his debut, the Nationals said no more. We are done with this losing. We are done with this walk dead man walking at this point and we have to make a change today. Davey is a legend. Davey is an absolute legend. And when I first saw that Davy Martinez was fired, I was thinking 2019 World Series was a great run. Davy Martinez could have a statue at Nationals Park. And I’d say, you know what, that makes sense. But you know what also makes sense is moving off a lamb duck manager. I was talking with a friend yesterday and I’m going to cross streams with sports real quick. One of the best coaches of all time is Bill Bich. Bill Bichc got fired. He got fired from the New England Patriots. He won six Super Bowls, the most of all time as far as head coaches go. They got they fired him. They moved off him. If you are out there thinking you can’t fire Dave Martinez, he is not the issue. He won us a World Series. That is not an excuse at this point. It’s not an excuse that I think a lot of people have been making for quite some time with Davey and it’s simply not a good one. Just because a team has won a World Series, which by the way was six years ago, does not mean that the Nationals simply cannot move off him at this point. While I will always remember Dave Martinez for 2019 and appreciate him and when he comes back he is going to get the biggest applause point. He is a legend of this organization. But right now you need a fresh new voice. This is not the team from 2019. This is a team that is right now stuttering to try to win. And right now you simply cannot win games. And honestly, a lot of it, while it may not have to do with Ma manager Dave Martinez, he certainly has not helped the cause. He has not helped in any way whatsoever as far as this rebuild goes. And Davey again, legend, World Series champion. We would not win a World Series without Dave Martinez. I think he’s a fine manager, but he is not for the Washington Nationals right now. And you might be wondering, well, why is he not a good fit for the Nationals moving forward? Well, I’ve got a long list, and I’ll share that list after we tell you guys about our friends over at Monarch Money. Do you ever wish managing your money felt easier? 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And when you’re young and if you’re maybe nearing retirement either, you can have that ability with Monarch Money. So take control of your finances with MonarchMoney and use code locked on MLB at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. That’s monarchmoney.com code locked on MLB for half off your first year. Thank you all for making Lockdown Nationals your first listen every single day as we are free and available wherever you get your podcast. So, the Nationals, they have fired president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez. Yesterday’s show, last night, we talked about Mike Rizzo and the shocking decision that they made. So, make sure you check out that podcast from yesterday’s show. Again, you can check that out wherever you get your podcast on Apple, Spotify, and of course, the video version over on YouTube. We are part of the Locked On podcast network where it’s your team every single day. So, how did we get here with Dave Martinez? How did the Washington Nationals get to this point where you are firing the manager in the middle of the season after starting out 37 and 53 through your first what what is the math? 90 games of the season. How did we get to this point? Well, first things first, nearly a month ago, a few weeks ago, Dave Martinez threw the players under the bus. He threw them under the bus and it was a terrible quote at a terrible time. That was really the time where I was like, “This is bad. This is going to end real bad for the Washington Nationals.” And of course, it did and it should have. the Nationals moving on from Davy Martinez is for many reasons, but my number one reason is when you throw the players under the bus and when you are asked about blame potentially on the coaches, that is part of your job to say, “Hey, it’s on the coaching staff. This is on us. It’s a team effort. The players, they’re going to have to play a little bit better, but obviously it becomes on me and this is my job. This is what I have to do. I have to lead this team through this really bad stretch of baseball that we have been playing and we have to be better and the coaching staff, they have to be better as well. David Martinez did not do that. David Martinez said, “The players, they have to play better. We can’t play for the players. They have to make the throws. They have to make the hits.” And it was just like, “Oh my gosh, did you just call out the players?” That was a stunning, stunning quote. And that was when the fan base, nearly 100% of the people said, “We need to fire this guy.” And I was never the one to say like, “Hey, Dave Martinez, look at the roster he has. It’s not a very good roster. This team is not a very good team. This organization is run like a double A team at this point. I don’t blame Davey.” But then that happened and I’m just like, “Oh my gosh, he has lost the clubhouse.” And then a day later it comes out with through anonymous sourcing from Andrew Golden Post and he comes out and he talks about how players in the clubhouse are not happy. You had anonymous players come out and say that some of us were flabbergasted and they were quote unquote pissed and ticked off and they should have been. This is a young team with a young core, which by the way, it’s not a bad young core. These are guys like McKenzie Gore and James Wood who are all stars. James Wood is going to be in the home run derby. He’s one of the brightest young stars in baseball today. And if you lose guys like that, then you are done. You are absolutely cooked. And that is what happened here with Dave Martinez. You cannot lose the clubhouse and a season of which you’re not going to win baseball games. If you are not going to win baseball games and you lose the clubhouse, you’re done. And that’s when I knew this magical carpet ride, which it once was, it’s over with. Davy Martinez should have never made those comments because that’s when this fan base, they had their arrows pointed up at the Learner family and then they said, “Look over there. Dave Martinez, you are to blame.” The past few weeks, the fan base, they have made it known. You have made it known. Davy Martinez should not be the manager of this team. Dave Martinez should be gone. We need a new voice and that is what happened. That is my number one reason at this point and quite frankly I don’t necessarily subscribe to the fact that he has completely lost this clubhouse. I do think Dave Martinez is a respectable human number one but number two as a manager he’s fine but he’s never been that analytical guru who’s going to click every right button and and make all the right decisions. He’s no Joe Madden. We know that at this point. But what he is is a good guy who we thought was a good leader. But this past season and this season overall, it’s kind of been pretty jarring to see that his leadership skills aren’t great. And what told me that was the fact that you call out your players and say that they have to play better. While he was right, you don’t say that out loud. you take the blame. That is your job and he did not do his job and he didn’t do it well. So that’s my number one reason. Number two, telling fans that you are ready to win. I remember when the Nationals unveiled their City Connect jerseys back in West Palm Beach and they put out the video and he I’m just going to paraphrase real quick, but he said, “We’re not rebuilding. We’re ready to win. Every step of the way, Dave Martinez said, “We are ready to win. We are ready to win. We’re not rebuilding. We’re going to win.” Well, through 90 games, you’re sitting here at 37 and 53. The messaging I have a problem with, and I’ve had a problem with this since day one. When I looked at this team on paper, I’m like, well, there’s an argument to be had as to maybe why this team could be decent. Maybe they get better in the second half. Maybe they just make some savvy moves and ultimately this team is really good and they win 85 games and they make a wild card push. I could see that. But then on the other side of the coin, I sit there and I’m like, well, I could also see them winning 71 games again. I could also see where guys do not pan out. I could also see where injuries happen to main pieces of this team and you’re sitting there kind of scratching your head saying, “Well, how did we not expect this? This is a 162g game marathon.” The messaging from Dave Martinez and Mike Grizzo was flat out wrong. This team was not ready to win. And you might be thinking to yourself, “Well, what else do you say? What else do you say? Do you say that, yeah, we’re going to lose this year. We’re gonna we’re in rebuilding and that’s our goal. No, they don’t say that. But they went out of their way to let everybody know in the media, to let everybody know in the fan base and to let baseball world know that they are ready to win. And Davey was wrong. They were not ready to win. You should not have gone out of your way to sit there and have this messaging up saying we’re going to win in 2025. Breaking news, Davey. You’re not and you have not. And even if the Nationals expected to win this year, maybe Davey was the issue. And maybe the Nationals go on this run and they finish around 500 by the end of the season. I don’t think it’s possible. You’re fifth in the NL East. You’re a bottom dweller at this point in time. Ken Rosenthal was right. But Davey, don’t go out of your way and have these expectations set so high and sell this fan base on a team that is fool’s gold at this point in time. It was never going to win. You should not have gone out of your way to say, “This is a winning team, guys. We’re not rebuilding. We’re ready to win.” Wrong. should never have happened that way. That’s my number two reason. My number three one, this is my personal gripe, and I think ultimately this might be the main reason as to why the Washington Nationals decided to move off of Dave Martinez. We’ll discuss that after this. Thank you all for making Lockdown Nationals your first listen every single day as we are free and available wherever you get your podcast. And of course, the breaking news of the last 24 hours is that the Washington Nationals have fired president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez. And it certainly shocked the baseball world. Yesterday, we talked about Mike Rizzo. Make sure to check out that podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts, whether it’s on Apple, Spotify, and of course the video version over on YouTube. Again, just look up Locked on Nationals. And while you’re at it, hit that subscriber button. We are part of the Locked On podcast network where it is your team every single day. And right now we get into my personal main reason as to why I wanted to see Dave Martinez go. It was the lack of consistency with this Nationals lineup. If you go back to later on in April, I was screaming on a podcast saying, “Where is the consistency in this lineup? When will you finally say CJ Abrams is my leadoff hitter, James Wood is my number two hitter, Nathaniel O is my number three hitter, and whoever follows, do what you have to do.” There was never any consistency with the Nationals lineup. Not one now single constant overtime. Abrams finally took back the leadoff spot and James Wood is the number two hitter. And that’s how it should be. That is what the Nationals should be doing. But it took you months to figure that out. It should not take anyone that amount of time to figure that thing out. You could have figured that out and I could have figured that out. And really, we did figure that out. Consistency with young players is such a big deal. Getting that routine in place is such a big deal. Seeing yourself and kind of going into a game knowing that you’re going to be batting second and playing left field and whether you’re batting lead off and playing shortstop or you’re catching and you’re going to be batting eighth or you’re playing center field and you’re be batting ninth, those things matter. It’s a headsp space that you have to get into. And in baseball compared to other sports, I believe that with this marathon that is 162 games to play, you have to have some consistency in there. And while lineup changes are necessary at times, it’s not necessary when you’re doing this every single game. It is not necessary when you’re trying out Alex Cole in the leadoff spot or having him bat third. These are instances where you have to sit there and think to yourself, what is best for these young guys? What is best for these young guys who are our only chances of winning games? Davey Martinez never put that first this season. From 2020 all the way through 2024, I never used Davey as a scapegoat and said, “We’re losing because of this guy.” I never said that once. In fact, I like Davey. I thought Davey was a fine manager. I never thought he was a great one. I never thought he was a terrible one either. But the messaging has been lost over time. And my biggest gripe is that you could not figure out this lineup. You have success one day where you put up 12 runs and then the next day you completely change the lineup yet again. What does that do for a 22-year-old Dylan Cruz and a 22-year-old James Wood? You need to have guys in the lineup in that same space and see if they can finally figure things out themselves. A lineup can dictate a lot in a game. Changing it when your team is bad and when it’s on a cold streak, I understand that. But when you have no consistency, when you don’t have a set in stone lineup every single day, when you are playing these mixup games of Josh Bell off the in the cleanup spot, Josh Bell batting seventh, Dylan Cruz batting ninth, Dylan Cruz batting lead off, Dylan Dylan Cruz batting third. I was ready to rip my hair out. It made no sense. Dylan Cruz has struggled this season. We all know that. But I also think Davey has to do with some of that and he is in that equation in my opinion. Not figuring out where he works in this lineup was managerial malpractice. It was this was a decision that the Nationals simply could not get right. And the decision was up to Dave Martinez. We could go on a long list of things as to what has gone wrong and we haven’t even gone into the bullpen. The bullpen decisions were really bad. Pulling starting pitchers after five innings. Really, the lack of awareness as far as his coaching staff goes is another debacle that I think probably was a slept on under understory here. Having his buddies, Miguel Cairo as your bench coach, Shawn Doolittle coming in as a pitching coordinator, I think that has been a great move, having Jim Hickeyi as your pitching coach, having we all know the hitting coach Darnell Kohl’s still here. What are we doing? These are all his friends that are all going to high-five Dave Martinez, and they’re all going to sit there and have his back. They’re all of his friends. All of his former friends. I don’t I hate to put it this way, but it’s kind of what it is. Davey had a lot of yesmen around him. And I don’t know if anyone challenged him and said, “Is this lineup the best thing for today? Is this lineup really going to put us in a situation to win ball games consistently if we just change things up every now and then?” And the shocking thing about that is that Davey is a former player. Davey played with the Expose. He bounced around for years, but still he was a major league player. He knows what it’s like to get in the head space and to be an everyday player. He knows what it’s like in the struggle of mid July when it’s 95 degrees out there and you don’t know where you’re batting or you don’t know if you’re going to be coming in that night from the bullpen or you don’t know if you’re going to be able to go 90 pitches in a game. These are all things that Davey could control and he did not control that narrative. To put a bow on this conversation with Dave Martinez, he’s a legend. He is a 2019 World Champ. This is someone that will always be respected in town. We will remember him for the 2019 World Series, but we will not remember him for the past few seasons. It’s been ugly. It’s been really bad. and having that same message every day go one and0 every day. It’s cute and all, but when you go 0 and one every day, it’s a little less cute. It gets a little old. The Nationals, they needed new leadership. Moving on from Davy Martinez, while the timing of it might be a little surprising, making the move overall is not surprising whatsoever. We all knew this was going to happen. We all knew that the Nationals would move off of Davey and we all knew that Davey Martinez at this point in time was a dead man walking. And the Learner family, they called their shot and they said, “We’re ready to move on.” In the Washington Nationals, they’re going to have to figure out what’s best for us moving forward. But what a shocking 24 hours in the Washington Nationals. They have fired their president of baseball operations, Mike Gryo, who has been the decision maker in town since 2009, and manager, Dave Martinez, who has been at the helm of the operation since 2018 and won that World Series in 2019. What a jarring last day or so for the Washington Nationals. But thank you all for making Lockdown Nationals your first listen every single day as we are free and available wherever you get your podcast. And of course, check us out wherever you get your pods. Again, look up Locked on Nationals, wherever you get your pods. We will catch you guys on the flip side on tomorrow’s show. We will be discussing number one, the Nationals interim manager, who will be the guy controlling things moving forward and what other news comes out from this thing. And just another topic on the Washington Nationals. What a shocking 24 hours, but not all that surprising. I will catch you guys on the flip side. Have a good one. Go Nets.

As the Nats sent shockwaves throughout the baseball world firing President Mike Rizzo and Manager Davey Martinez, Ryan feels like the Davey Martinez decision was the CORRECT one. We discuss the timing of this move after being swept by the Red Sox. We also get into how the Nats got here with Davey, what went wrong in 2025?

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