The Washington Nationals Have A BIG Problem Moving Forward | Grant & Danny

The Washington Nationals Have A BIG Problem Moving Forward | Grant & Danny

And the Nats have a new team president and general manager that they’ve got to decide on in the future and a new manager to hunt down this off seasonason. We’ll be talking about that with Jeff Passen in just a moment. We’re brought to you today every every day by the law firm Condorian Mirage exclusively. So you can hit them up for state planning, elder law, real estate transactions, probate administration. Their attorneys are always there to protect you and your family’s assets. Schedule a free consultation with their team today by visiting kmlyers.com. and be sure to let them know that we sent you. That’s kmlyers.com. A 17word tweet change DC baseball for a long, long time last night. It came from Jeff Passen right around 6:30 local time. The best writer covering baseball in America is also the top news breaker and he joins us now. The tweet was breaking the nationals of fire general manager Mike Rizzo and manager David Martinez, sources tell ESPN. So Jeff, uh first of all, thanks for a few minutes. How are you? I’m doing great, guys. How are you? We are well. We appreciate you making time for us. We know you’re busy. What do you make of the timing of this? The week of the Major League Baseball draft, the month of the trade deadline, Rizzo having run both of those things for 17 years here. Probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in a vacuum. But if you look at the fact that Dave Martinez’s contract option uh needed to be decided on by next week, that was the deadline for it. Um and the Nationals bras decided that they were not going to pick it up. I think they were really scared of Jim Wgleman 2.0. And that is something that I’ve been talking about this all day on other radio stations and haven’t been able to bring up Jim Wrigleman because people don’t understand what a disaster it was. But you guys know like it was a mess. Um you know the team was winning and he said either you pick up my option for next year or I’m going to quit. And Mike Rizzo called his bluff and he quit in the middle of a season in the middle of a successful run. and everybody was so confused by it. And the prospect of having Dave Martinez playing out the year as a lame duck manager uh just did not appeal to the Nationals and understandably so. But uh I I would have thought if if given all of those circumstances before that uh that they would have let go of him but kept Mike Grizzle on at least through the trade deadline. Uh clearly though they uh the the ownership group saw the two as a pair as uh tethered together and decided to make the change in one fell swoop. And while I I know that Mike Dearlo uh will be plenty prepared for this. And he’s he’s the sort of guy who is very judicious in in how he goes about forming his opinions. Um, it’s a whole lot different when you’re in the big chair, you know, when you’re the person who is saying yes or no to a trade, yes or no to, are we going to take this guy with the number one overall pick, only the third time we’ve had that in our franchise history when the first two were Steven Strawber and Bryce Harper. It’s a lot of pressure to put on a guy, but uh it’s the a mantle that he is is taking with open arms and you just hope if you’re a Nationals fan right now that they nail this pick because it’s going to be the one of the most important in the in the history of the team. Well said. Jeff passing of ESPN. So to go back to them being inextricably linked so to speak, you know, so the 15th is when I heard Davey’s deadline was to pick up the option in 8 days as you said and that was for 2 and a half million and they weren’t going to do that and I totally understand that. But I want to double click on this idea that then Rizzo couldn’t have GMD out the season. Was his option also this month? Do we know? Because I haven’t been able to confirm that. The reason I ask is in asking around other executives that would be really weird if his option is between the draft and the trade deadline like that would have been set up from the beginning to be dysfunctional. Others have reported that they have not independently gotten that information. So that is something that I do not know the answer to. And isn’t that a comment though, Jeff? Wouldn’t that I mean that that just seems like it makes no sense to me that that his option would be Now, you know what though, having a manager’s option in the middle of the season’s weird, too. That’s that’s that’s the the sort of standard operating procedure you you generally see either. Like these are these are decisions that tend to be made before after seasons, not in the middle of them. Jeeoff, on a on a pretty simple scale, they haven’t been very good, this national team. Second most loss losses in the big since they won the World Series in 2019. So people losing their jobs over that. This is pro sports. That that kind of makes sense. But what is your sense of of ownership and and where they are, where they’ve been, what’s going on there, cuz our perception here is they’re pretty disconnected, disinterested, uh, and this is kind of the first time they’ve come out of their cave to actually make a major baseball decision. So I kind of wonder just a just your perspective on that, but b kind of what what criteria are they judging against with with a hamstring budget? That is a great question and I think it’s one that Mark Learner frankly owes the fans an explanation on. I think that if if he wants people to continue coming out to Nationals Park and to believing in this team and what the future looks like, there needs to be a little bit more transparency in this situation, especially before you go out and hire a full-time person. Maybe that’s Mike Dearo. Maybe it’s somebody from the outside. But what what I do know is that the Nationals just in their approach to baseball operations have differed from other franchises. They they have leaned less on the analytic side of things. And I I think it’s fair to wonder just how much of an overhaul is Mark Learner willing to fund. And I say fund both in the respect of does he want to bring in uh you know a higher profile general manager or somebody who’s got experience and might cost a little bit more um or uh does he want to bring in somebody who has that analytics background and is is intending on taking the nationals at very least up to the baseline of of where other organizations are right now because I don’t think they’re there at this point or at very least they have not applied the information in the same way uh that other organizations do. Uh but but most of all like do you want to win? I think that’s a reasonable question for somebody to ask him at this point because what have the Nationals in terms of their their budget and their payroll shown fans over the last five years other than I’m not going to say a disincclination to go out and win, but sorry when when you’re a team in Washington DC and your highest paid player is retired, your second highest paid player is a Toronto Blue Jay. What are you what are you trying to do here? Like are are you really expecting this leap forward when uh you know a lot of the guys who you’re expecting it from are coming from within the farm system and players often take as we saw with James Wood you know a year to get their sea legs under them and to figure out how to be a productive player at the big league level. And right now the Nats have three of those. James Swift, DJ Abrams, and McKenzie Gore, all of whom happened to have come over in the Juan Sodto trade, which I’m not going to say it it saved this franchise, but it pretty much saved this franchise from becoming like an ignominious level team uh of of the ilk with the White Socks and the Rockies. Yeah, without that trade, I don’t know how big of a difference there is between those teams and the Nationals. We’ve been trying to do this blame pie thing where we start with the premise that they don’t spend enough money and and you’re a 70 and a half win projected team among odds makers and you your highest paid player that’s actually on the field is Nathaniel Lo, a first baseman who’s, you know, going to go 25 and 100 this year maybe, but has a declining skill set. Your second highest paid player is Mike Sroka. Like you don’t get to make the playoffs when that’s your roster. That there was no commitment. Correct. And that’s that’s a fact. The other side is for a long time they’ve drafted and developed poorly. I wonder about resources in a week where the Washington Post wrote a story and said they don’t have this technology that everybody’s had for 5 years still. Mike Rizzo came on our station this week and said, “Oh, we’re getting it.” Okay, I guess that’s cool in 2025 that they’re getting the thing that some teams got in 2019. But I guess my question to you is, and maybe it doesn’t matter. What’s were they really bad at drafting and developing under Mike Rizzo to the point that blowing him out makes sense or is there a larger problem here that makes that almost insignificant with ownership? I think it’s more the latter than the former. But the the former really brings light to it all, right? like if they if they drafted and developed better than they have, then I don’t think we’re spending as much time talking about the financial element of things. It’s the Milwaukee Brewers coralary, the Cleveland Guardians corerary. Like if if you succeed, um you know, it papers over a lot of those those warts. like you just don’t care about them quite as much because hey, we’re winning still and and maybe not winning to the extent that they could should um in the eyes of the fans need to, but hey, at least they still have a winning culture there. Uh that has not been the case with the Nationals at this point. And I think it absolutely begins with what sort of resources are given to the people who are running the baseball operations department. And and when it comes to resources, uh the Nationals have lagged behind for years and and they don’t seem particularly inclined to change that at this point. That that goes directly back on ownership. And you know, I just I remember 2019, guys. I I remember just how good that team was. You know, despite the start, it was a really really good team. Like by the time they got around to the playoffs, um they were a formidable bunch. And I I remember at the it was the GM meetings this year. I remember at the GM meetings I was talking with somebody with a nats and I was like, “You guys are going to go after Alex Bregman, right?” And he’s like, “No.” It’s like that’s that’s how much money we have for like one year of Alex Bregman is how much we have for like the entirety of the off season. And and that that to me was was damning because look, five years down the road we might look back at Mike Rizzo’s tenure in a little different light. If Dylan Cruz figures it out, that changes things. If Brady House becomes a full-time third baseman hitting 25 home runs a year, that changes things. It’s still a little too early, I think, to not to assess, but but to pass judgment on what the most recent drafts have looked like. And King’s another guy who, you know, in his first year getting his feet wet, getting time to go out and develop. But it all starts guys with the money and if you don’t have any it hamstrings you from the beginning. Jeff passing with us here on Grant and Danny. So kind of to that end forget about money part for a second with when it comes to the learners. Give me the n the national perspective. I know folks just anecdotally in commercial real estate for example that have dealt with them and the the story is always the same. They do it their way. They negotiate by saying the price is a dollar. Then someone goes what about 80 cents? the price is a dollar and they do it until you go screw it and then you pay the dollar and that’s how they’ve made their billions over the years, right? They’ve just done their way and I think that’s been kind of translated to Major League Baseball where they’ve done things their way much to the irritation of of of folks at times. But I’d love for you to speak to that, Jeff, if you could. Yeah. Well, when you have the second most losses since winning a World Series, maybe your way needs to change, right? That’s the the question I really have about the national organization is just how self-aware are they, right? How how how much does ownership know about how this organization runs, but beyond that, how other organizations run, how other organizations are are leveraging their assets to win baseball games and and how do the Nationals compare to that? And you know, I think the the best and most successful people in professional sports are the most curious, the ones who know that they really don’t know a whole lot. And and they’re constantly trying to learn and understand their place in the game better. And there there’s been this gravitation, I think, of of teams, particularly mid and small market teams, toward staying away from free agency. It’s an it’s an inefficient market. and you’re buying downside years and all all those listen all those arguments they’re they’re valid they’re salient they’re true but there aren’t all that many ways to acquire players right you can get them in the domestic amateur draft you can get them as teenagers in the international pool and then beyond that it’s either trades or free agent signings and with trades you’re, you know, you’re giving up talent to get talent, whereas the free agent signings, you’re giving up money. And, uh, I, you know, last I checked, the warers, the learners were were very rich. A lot of money and a lot of opportunity to uh to take this team and turn it into something else. And we’ve seen it before, guys. We saw $245 million for Steven Strawber. Uh, you know, we we have seen them go out. I know this is a while ago now, but 126 million for Jason Worth. Yeah, they let Anthony Rendone walk. Yeah, they let Bryce Harper walk. So, it’s not always resigning their guys, but it’s not like this team hasn’t been willing to go out on a limb financially in the past. And, you know, I would argue that Max Sher’s original deal with the Nationals uh was, you know, one of the five best deals of this century. like he was incredible the whole time here. Worth every single penny that they were paying him over those seven years. 200 10 mil for sure. There’s almost like the line in the sand of before and after Ted Lerner stopped running the team because you know all the all of the stuff you referenced was still with him as the steward. Jeff Passen is with us. We’ll let you out on this Jeff because I know you got a lot. It’s not it’s not it’s not almost a line by the way. That’s the lie. Oh yeah. Interesting. There is a clear line of some kind of correlation. I can’t figure it out. I’ll let you out on this one, but I just wanted to get some names. You’re so plugged in of possible GM candidates, managerial candidates, and I don’t even mean necessarily that the Nats have been or will be linked to, but just who are those guys right now in baseball that you would say you need a GM, this is someone I would talk to. And similar for manager, it is I I’m sorry for the cop out here. They don’t know what they want, right? like if they if they want an old school guy, um there are some of those available. If they want to go more toward analytics, there are plenty of those available. If they want to find someone who is uh well-versed in both, they can do that. Um, I’ll say this. If I’m the Learner family right now, I am trying to give Eric Neander the Godfather deal. Um, you know, with the raise potentially being sold. Um, Neander went to Virginia Tech, so he has uh I understand Blackburg, not Washington DC, but you know, Virginia is uh is pretty close. And I I would try and get him in and let him work his magic uh on this organization because he is very very good at what he does both in building cultures and in building winning teams. And I think it all starts there. We’re we’re going to see just how much money Mark Learner is willing to spend on a general manager and a manager. You know, arguably the two most important people in an organization beyond the players. and they have to get these hires right. So, uh, look, it it could end up maybe Mike Dearlo does a great job at the deadline, does a great job in the draft, uh, not start winning a little bit more and, uh, they land on him as a guy. But if you’re looking external, uh, I think you got to take moonshots because this organization, it’s not just bad now. Uh, system’s not very good either. So, it’s not like going forward they’re in a great position to turn things around at this point. Jeff, great with us, man. Really appreciate the time. Have an awesome week. Always my pleasure. Appreciate you having me. The outstanding Jeff Passen. Check him out on ESPN. He broke the story last night that Mike Rizzo and Davy Martinez had been fired by the Nationals. your reactions to that

The Washington Nationals fire GM Mike Rizzo and Manager Davey Martinez, but according to Jeff Passan it could be a long road ahead.

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