After a sweep (two games but still counts!) of Atlanta the Nats hosted SF and lost 2 of 3 with a fairly anemic offensive output. Now they face a fairly daunting stretch, traveling cross-country to take on AL West leading Seattle and the NL Wild Card hopeful Arizona Diamondbacks, then back home for a series against the Cubs. It's Memorial Day week so things are now "real" and getting 4 wins here would be great for a team hoping to scrape .500. A 1-2 win blow-out would basically make it a claw-back summer. (so as usual expect the 3 wins)
Tomorrow we'll start going over the 1/3 of the season situation now that guys like Mitchell Parker have returned to Earth and James Wood has not
In the meantime Read Rosenthal's fairly scathing take on the Nats. "Good teams both spend and develop. The Nationals do neither" Ouch!
Rosenthal: Nationals remain among MLB’s bottom feeders despite lengthy rebuild - The Athletic
8 comments:
Rosenthal's piece was both fair and timely. It's stuff that's been posted by Harper and discussed amongst all the readers here. Rizzo certainly has his positives and the 2011 - 2019 run was fun and memorable, but it seems clear that change is needed.
I don't really find the piece all that persuasive. Every datapoint is obviously skewed in favor of his conclusion. Tons of fun with endpoints. Every success is the lucky exception and every failure is the true-talent norm. I doubt more than a handful organizations could withstand that kind of motivated reasoning without looking dreadful.
Over the entire Rizzo tenure (since 2009), the team is ranks 18th with a winning percentage of .492. Given that he certainly didn't walk into an easy situation (the incoming Strasburg pick notwithstanding) and that his run has included several serious contenders and electric stars and not just 15 years of mediocrity, there's a pretty big burden of proof required to argue that Rizzo has been worse than average and I'm not seeing anything approaching that in the article.
Now, article aside, if you're just arguing that it's been a long run and it's time for new blood, I think that's a perfectly reasonable position, even if I don't agree. But it's classless to try to manifest that change with a hit piece about the org being one of the worst run in the sport.
I had similar reactions to the Rosenthal article as SMS. I think there's a case to be made that moving on from Rizzo is a good idea, but I don't think Rosenthal's article makes it.
Usually, you can tell whose fingerprints are behind a Nats hit piece (the most common is Rizzo feeding something anonymously to a reporter to get the ownership group to do something). I don't have a good handle on whose fingerprints are behind this one, however.
Haven’t the Nats played a role in the development of Wood, Abrams, Gore, Parker, and Irvin?
Rosenthal is trying to tell us our baby is ugly. Most of the discussion here (including Harper) involves serious looks at our baby's flaws. But ugly? Nah.
Disagree—he deserves some blame for player development, but he’s already taken accountability and begun the overhaul there.
This team would probably be above .500 with a better FA budget. At this point in the 2010s rebuild they had Werth, LaRoche, and (traded for, but partly because they could afford an extension) Gio Gonzalez.
Rizzo is maybe the best GM in baseball at decisions involving other people’s players (trades) and FAs (his biggest miss is probably Corbin, who played a huge part in them winning a World Series).
Rosenthal calls out the obvious: the Nats since 2019 are the worst. He shares the blame between ownership and Rizzo -- something also done here ad nauseum. The photo of J Bell flailing at the plate summarizes Rizzo's inadequate late-career strategy with the team.
If his point is that we need to wipe the slate a la The Redskins, sure. Why not? Tell him to write a memo to MLB and Scott Boras.
Beyond repeated failed attempts to catch lightening in a bottle with late career players, I'm not sure what Rizzo has done to raise Rosenthal's ire. Rizzo is a decent mid-market MLB manager working for 2nd generation owners that have grown tired with their acquisition. He was a cut above the GM he replaced and made some savvy moves to build the team.
He's built the team on the field right now to a level or two above bottom feeders. Solid play one week, career disappointment the next, yes. Rizzo converted the Scherzer/Turner/Soto assets into a decent core, give him that. Time for him to go? It will be, eventually if not now.
Perhaps Rosenthal can write an article about billionaire-owned MLB owners unwilling to invest or greed in free agency?
It's true were not great at developing talent but he discounts talent developed that was acquired via trade. Trea Turner comes swiftly to mind.
It's also true we've been abysmal since 2021. The Rox should soon take the mantle of worst since '21 though.
But I got curious about how the team looked year by year since Rizzo's arrival. I can do a fun with stats post to defend the guy too.
As SMS notes, we're 18th in baseball since 2009 when Rizzo took over. But that 2009 team was hide your eyes bad (worst in baseball) and 2010 was still very not good. But if you start an analysis from 2011 when Rizzo was firmly two years in, we're a pretty good ball club. Yes, generational talent was drafted. But it was also partially retained. Below is the rank in cumulative wins in MLB from season to season with 2011 as the starting point and the respective win pct. Via Statmuse:
2011 15 0.497
2012 9 0.551 Best in MLB this season
2013 8 0.544
2014 4 0.556
2015 4 0.548
2016 2 0.554
2017 2 0.560
2018 4 0.554
2019 4 0.556
2020 4 0.551
2021 6 0.537
2022 8 0.519
2023 10 0.513
2024 11 0.507
2025 11 0.506
Not bad consider since 21 it is:
2021 21 0.433
2022 26 0.410
2023 29 0.380
2024 30 0.397
2025 30 0.407
That's really bad. It's also why I've been thinking of giving up my season tickets that I've had since 2008. I see a glimmer of hope with this crop of youngsters. But if ownership screws around and doesn't sign a FA or three this off-season...I'm out.
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