On Sunday afternoon, the Washington Nationals announced surprising moves from our nation’s capital. They had relieved longtime manager Davey Martinez and even longer-time general manager and president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo of their duties, effective immediately.
The moves themselves were not the surprising part. Since winning the World Series in 2019, the Nationals have regularly been one of the worst teams in baseball. They have the second-most losses since 2019, only ranking above the moribund Colorado Rockies.
In addition, both Martinez and Rizzo were on expiring contracts with 2026 options. A decision would have to be made.
Martinez had come under fire not only for his results on the field, but for appearing to throw his players entirely under the bus for it.
“We’re not going to finger point here and say it’s on the coaches. It’s never on the coaches,” Martinez said back in June in the midst of what would become a 12-game losing streak. “Sometimes you’ve got to put the onus on the players, they’ve got to go out there and they’ve got to play the game.”
Under Rizzo—formerly one of the longest-tenured heads of baseball operations in the league—the Nationals had struggled with drafting and player development following the team’s championship run. While they have sound some success in shortstop CJ Abrams, outfielder James Wood, and pitcher MacKenzie Gore—the latter two were named to the 2025 National League All-Star team—many of the prospects they obtained after parting with franchise cornerstones Juan Soto, Max Scherzer, and Trea Turner have yet to bear fruit.
The surprising part of Sunday’s news is that the decision came just one week before the 2025 MLB Amateur Draft—which begins on Sunday, July 13th—and less than a month before this season’s trade deadline.
Per the Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, the last time a general manager was fired before the trade deadline was in July 2016, when the Minnesota Twins relieved Terry Ryan of his duties. Rosenthal also points out that Ryan still oversaw the Twins’ draft, as the draft had not yet been moved to July like it is today.
With it being extremely unlikely that a new, permanent general manager and president of baseball operations will be named in such a short amount of time, the draft and the deadline will fall upon interim general manager Mike DeBartolo, who was previously the assistant general manager under Rizzo.
The Colorado Rockies find themselves in a similar situation at this point in the season. They’ve been consistently terrible since their last contention window, and have struggled to develop their prospects. In addition, they have ownership that neither fans nor national baseball media look upon kindly.
For both teams, the upcoming draft and trade deadline will be absolutely critical.
Both the Rockies (no. 4 overall in 2025) and Nationals (no. 1 overall in 2025) will be unable to draft within the top ten in 2026 due to anti-tanking measures in Major League Baseball’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement. Also, they both desperately need to reinforce their farm system by getting as much as they can from their tradable assets.
The Rockies were ahead of the curve after firing embattled manager Bud Black earlier this season. The team has also promoted Walker Monfort to a position of greater power on the business side of the game, seen co-owner Charlie Monfort return to the fold, and made a variety of coaching changes at the big league level.
However, general manager Bill Schmidt remains entrenched in his position.
As Rosenthal pointed out, dismissing a general manager before the draft and deadline is highly unusual. However, any reasonable person would think the writing was on the wall for Schmidt, who has been with the organization since 1999 and in his current role since 2021.
At what point should an organization part ways with a lame duck front office executive?
Schmidt’s own words make it difficult to parse how much impact he will have in the coming weeks.
Schmidt said in an interview with Kevin Henry for the Denver Gazette that a lot of pre-draft prep work had already been done. Senior Director of Scouting Marc Gustafson and Vice President and Assistant General Manager of Scouting Danny Montgomery and the scouts had already had multiple individual and group meetings, and have also broken off into individual teams.
Schmidt did acknowledge the importance of this draft—and the draft overall to the Rockies. However, later in the interview Schmidt seemed to downplay his own significance in the process by stating that the Rockies would draft the best player available and be happy with whomever they get at no. 4 overall, regardless of the picks made by the Nationals, Seattle Mariners, and Los Angeles Angels with the first three selections.
“We’re going to line up four guys, and we know we’re going to get one of them,” Schmidt said. “There’s nothing we can control, right? Those three teams, Washington, Los Angeles (Angels) and Seattle, they’re going to pick who they pick.”
“We’re going to get a good player. We’re going to be happy with whoever we get because he’s going to be a good player.”
Schmidt was additionally non-committal on how both his previous work at the deadline and the many changes happening throughout the organization would affect the next few weeks, reiterating that the Rockies would do what they viewed as best for the club.
Although it was likely unintentional, Schmidt seems to have indicated that this organization can make it through the draft and the trade deadline with or without him. There are also multiple experienced members of the front office that could take his place, be it the aforementioned Danny Montgomery or Marc Gustafson, Senior Director of Player Development Chris Forbes, or even owner Dick Monfort’s younger son and Director of Professional Scouting Operations Sterling Monfort.
If that’s the case, would the Rockies be better served by following the unusual lead of the Washington Nationals?
Perhaps, a parting of ways sooner rather than later—while extraordinary—might be for the best.
However, Ken Rosenthal advises caution.
“Firing a losing head of president of baseball operations is defensible as long as ownership has a plan. When ownership makes such a move just before two of the biggest transactional days on the baseball calendar, it’s fair to question what that plan might be.”
His words might prove prescient, as with the ever-insular Rockies it is frequently difficult to perceive that their plans for the future hold.
Poll
Should the Rockies remove Bill Schmidt prior to the draft and trade deadline?
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