Some wild news broke on Thursday: the Nationals are postponing Saturday’s planned ceremony to honor Stephen Strasburg and retire his number due to some disagreement over the terms of paying out the remainder of his contract, which sees him owed $105 million.
That follows word earlier this week that the Nationals are losing several key names in their scouting and player development silos, including some of Mike Rizzo’s best lieutenants, seemingly out of the blue.
The Athletic’s Briit Ghiroli joined Grant & Danny as part of Thursday’s Beltway Blitz to try to explain it all, and when here’s the deal: it seems to all come down to cost-cutting, and runs deeper than we know?
“There’s a lot going on behind the scenes, but really what you’re dealing with now is an ownership group in the Lerners who want to sell, and also cut costs because they’re bleeding money, and they have a president in Mike Rizzo that’s unsigned,” Ghiroli said. “I’ve heard there are certain hang-ups there, one of which is the length of his deal, and while it’s still likely it will get done, we have a scouting department that is decimated – I’m hearing up to 15, many of whom were hired two years ago when they pumped up that department. This is an organization in a state of flux, and people who were very loyal or have done good things for the organization were told they’re not coming back.”
Grant was confused, wondering if it was firings or not, but clearly, they’d be barking up the wrong tree.
“I don’t think this was a case of people doing their jobs, especially when you talk about pro scouts, who, what? Helped them accelerate the rebuild by scouting the players they got for Juan Soto and Max Scherzer and Trea Turner?” Ghiroli asked. “It’s a case of ownership is cutting costs.”
Ghiroli also told the guys that word is Rizzo wants a similar deal to Dave Martinez (two years and an option), which “hasn’t necessarily been on the table,” and now, “changes in personnel can complicate that, and there is a lot of dissension about where this is going moving forward.”
The bigger problem, it seems, is the Lerners, who want out, not wanting to hamstring potential new owners with a long-term and costly front office leader.
“Ownership wanted to get Rizzo and Davey done around the same time and announce them together, but people have asked me if this means the Lerners are staying,” Ghiroli said. “No they’re not – they want to pass this off and have these two guys in place for the next owner, but there’s worry salary-wise about having Rizzo for a longer stay.”
Grant thinks Mark Lerner is into remaining owner, but apparently, the family is putting more personal money into the team to stay afloat, and ownership needs to change hands sooner than later – but how do we get there?
“They need to get the price they deemed to be appropriate, and second, the MASN deal needs to get resolved,” Ghiroli said. “Ted Leonsis seems to be the guy, but he’s not going to buy a team when he owns a TV network and not have the team he now owns be on that network. If they can reach an agreement there, this thing could maybe be resolved a little more quickly. There’s certainly a possibility they hang onto this team, but I think the best case there is them selling, and soon. At some point in time, even if they don’t get the price they want, it’s smarter in the long run to sell than keep leaking money.”