While the festivities around the MLB All-Star Game represent a four-day break for most of the players and coaches, it now represents another few days of work and the culmination of a busy weeks-long period for Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo and the front office people, as this period of July is when the MLB Draft takes place.
"It feels pretty good when it's done, yeah, two weeks of long days and looking at film and grinding out and kinda prepping players around with your group there," Rizzo said on Wednesday during his weekly appearance with 106.7 The Fan's The Sports Junkies, which is presented exclusively by our partners at MainStreet Bank — Cheer Local. Bank Local. Put Our Team in Your Office.
And when the three-day, 20-round draft is finished, the GM added, "You take a deep breath, you sit, back congratulate everybody on all their hard work, maybe have a little cocktail and kinda just relax before the next deadlines hit which is the [Aug. 1 MLB] trade deadline in a couple of weeks and the signing deadline, that's on [July] 25 so, still a lot of stuff to do, but the draft is always the most exciting part of the baseball calendar, in my humble opinion, and it's one of the most important days of the year for the organization.
"Those three days went well," Rizzo said. "And now they're past us, now we sign the players, get 'em physicals and move on to the trade deadline and see what happens there."
And while Rizzo's focus in the short-term remains on the newest Nationals, he told the Junkies that the "24/7, 365" process meant members of the organization's front office left Tuesday night for Arizona to scout a high school showcase game as they shift their gears to the 2024 MLB Draft.
And while some people may roll their eyes at the long-odds of baseball's late-round picks ever impacting the major league clubs, Rizzo added that he's drafted players in the 11th, 16th and 20th rounds that "have all been really good big league players."
"That's the secret sauce, you have to hit on those high first-round picks, but if you can get yourself, supplement your draft by hitting on an 8th-round pick – I drafted Brandon Webb in the 8th round back in the day and he won a Cy Young... I drafted Robbie Ray in the 12th round and he won a Cy Young – so those are the guys are on the ground," he said. "We take no pick for granted. Every pick is a chance to get to the big leagues. And you're grinding it out and hoping for a certain guy in the 20th round, I know we were last night."
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Shifting gears to the present-day Nationals, the club entered the All-Star break 36-54, but winners of four of their last five series and 8-7 in their last 15 games. And those series wins came against tough opponents: San Diego (43-47), Seattle (45-44), Philadelphia (48-41) and Texas (52-39).
"Yes, we've been playing pretty solid baseball for the last, three weeks or so," Rizzo said. "Inconsistent, but exciting and some flashes of really high-octaine baseball and some really good play. And that's our goal: be more consistent, be a good solid team and every day, day in and day out.
"Our conversations to our young players are you can't focus in game by game or inning by inning, like Clayton Kershaw said, its pitch by pitch. And it's exhausting at the end of the game... it's a learned skilled and our guys are learning it every day in the big leagues and hopefully as they get more experience we get more consistent at it."
Rizzo added that he was reminded in the draft room that Nats' infielders CJ Abrams (22) and Luis Garcia (23) are "younger than about 200 players that were drafted yesterday, so they already have a year or so in the big leagues."
"It's difficult, even for me, that we have to keep that in mind as we see these players develop, that group up the middle for us is very, very young core group of guys [Keibert] Ruiz, Abrams, Garcia, JoJo Gray, who had a nice inning [in the All-Star Game], and [MacKenzie] Gore and [Jake] Irvin," he said. "Those guys are very, very young, very inexperienced big league pitchers and players. And as the season grows they're getting the opportunity to learn on the job, experience at the big league level which will really aid them down the road to becoming part of this core group of guys."
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