Washington Nationals: Who Deserves The Blame?

Mike Rizzo

I’ve written a full analysis piece on why Mike Rizzo deserves most of the blame for this season going awry which came out on May 17th. In case you missed it, we can touch on the most critical points.

The bullpen is the obvious place to start. Rizzo has always believed in investing in the starting rotation and building a roster around that rotation. He did precisely that when he inked Patrick Corbin to a 6-year $140 million contract this offseason, which has looked like a good investment so far.

The puzzling part is that Rizzo has nearly $100 million invested in his starting rotation this season alone, while he has just $20 million total spent in the bullpen. Through 42 games, the Nationals bullpen ranks dead last in the Major Leagues with a 6.15 ERA.

Not investing in the bullpen has come back to bite Rizzo before and it appears that will be the case again this season.

The second major contributing factor to this season’s slow start has been the lack of organizational depth. There was nobody in the Minor Leagues that is prepared to step in when in injuries started to hit.

Wilmer Difo and Carter Kieboom have combined to hit .220/.282/.360 in Turner’s absence, while also playing sub-par defense. That can’t happen, that’s a black hole in the lineup. If you have Brian Dozier (another mistake), Difo and then the pitcher’s spot as your 7-9 in the order, then you have three places in the lineup that are hitting below .230.

The club also has no rotation depth since they’ve had to convert Erick Fedde and Joe Ross into relievers in hopes of stabilizing a terrible bullpen. With Anibal Sanchez getting hurt yesterday, either Fedde or Ross will now need to stretch back out to take Sanchez’s spot in the rotation, assuming he will be placed on the IL.

It’s challenging to win games when you have five of your everyday players on the IL. It becomes nearly impossible to win while those players are on the IL and when your organizational depth is non-existent.

The Players

Here’s the deal, although Rizzo deserves the majority of the blame, these guys are all still Major Leaguers, and they need to start acting like it. As a team, striking out in 26.2% of your plate appearances is not going to get you very far. Playing defense like a little league team is going to help rack up a ton of losses and infuriate your pitching staff.

The Nationals offense, after getting one-hit on Sunday and then no-hit for 6+ innings on Monday night ranks 21st in runs scored, 22nd in OPS and 28th in strikeouts. Quite simply, this is a lousy offensive unit right now.

Sure, they were without Turner, Rendon, Soto, Ryan Zimmerman and Matt Adams for a six-game stretch, but the offense hasn’t been any better since Rendon and Soto returned. Nothing is showing us that the offense can or will turn it around. Good things happen when you put the ball in play, but this team can’t seem even to make contact.

The bullpen doesn’t get out of this unscathed either. Matt Grace, who has appeared in a team-leading 21 games, has an ERA of 7.11 right now. Wander Suero has an ERA of 6.19 through 18 games, and Dan Jennings quickly joined in on the fun and has allowed 6 ER in just three innings.

It’s hard to keep a lead when you have the worst bullpen in the Major Leagues. They’ve issued 61 walks through just 119 innings pitched, which is the fewest innings pitched by a relief corps in the Majors. Opponents are hitting .275 off the Nationals bullpen. Only Detroit is worse in that regard.

If these guys want to keep their jobs on a Major League club, they have to do better. They have to be mentally stronger, they have to put this horrid start behind them, and they have to be held accountable. If you’re not getting the job done, then maybe you don’t belong on the team, it’s as simple as that.

Davey Martinez

I know this is the one we’ve all been waiting for. Davey Martinez, however, appears third on this list for a couple of reasons. As many have pointed out, he can’t swing the bat for his hitters, and he can’t throw strikes for his pitchers.

That’s all true, but his job is to have these guys prepared, be able to communicate with every one of them, put them in the best situation to win and to have some clue as to how to manage a Major League bullpen. He’s failed in 3 of 4 of those categories. Martinez is only, from what we hear, excellent at communicating with the players.

I’m tempted even to say he fails in all four categories, considering on numerous occasions, we’ve had a pitcher come in from the bullpen who we later find out is injured. That’s a communication issue, and that falls on the players and the manager. It’s happened twice in the past two seasons, and it’s unacceptable.

During Spring Training, Martinez harped on the fundamentals. Fans were promised this team would play cleaner baseball. That has not happened so far; in fact, the fundamentals have gotten worse.

Coming off of an off-day on Monday, the club didn’t look fresh and continued to play terrible defense which resulted in a 4-run first inning for the Mets. A 4-run first inning is almost insurmountable for this team right now. The game seemed out of reach right out of the gate.

A $197 million roster that never looks fresh and plays poor fundamental baseball is a poor reflection on the manager and the organization as a whole. Martinez should frankly be ashamed, but you would never see him get in a player’s face or remove a player from a game due to ineptitude.

Aside from Martinez’s complete inability to manage a bullpen, the most significant disconnect between Martinez and this team might be Martinez’s managerial style. Martinez wants to be best friends with every player on the team and let the clubhouse police itself. That’s great if you have a player or two in the clubhouse willing to police it, but this team doesn’t.

This team needs Joe Girardi or Buck Showalter. They need somebody who’s going to make sure you know right from wrong. They need somebody who’s going to pull you from the game if you do something stupid that the average Major League player wouldn’t do (I’m looking at you Victor Robles and Difo).

Martinez’s “I spoke with (insert name) after the game, and he knows he can’t do that” is a weak excuse that doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter that Robles is 21 years old. Getting picked off second base after a walk is unacceptable regardless of your age. Major Leaguers don’t do that.

Martinez is well-liked, but he is not the right manager for this team, and that shows on a nightly basis. The managerial spot is one spot that doesn’t count against the luxury tax, yet the managerial spot is one that has not been spent on since the Nationals came to D.C.

The Lerner Family

It’s tough to blame an ownership group that’s willing to carry a top 5 payroll in the Majors every single season. With that being said, until they commit to paying a manager, this team will never get to where it wants to be.

The decision to let Dusty Baker go following the 2017 season is not necessarily the issue here. Baker was a fine manager, but he too had faults that showed in the playoffs. The point is, if you’re going to let Baker go, you better be certain that you’re bringing in a guy who is going to get this team to where it wants to be.

That did not happen. Bringing in a rookie manager to guide a team with World Series aspirations was not the wisest decision with the likes of Girardi sitting out there unemployed.

Martinez supporters will say, “but look at the Red Sox; it worked for them.” Sure, it did work for them, but that’s one instance. I urge you to look at history and list off the rookie managers with no managerial experience whatsoever who have won a World Series in their first season – it’s a short list.

The resistance and refusal to invest in a top-shelf coaching staff is baffling. If you want to put the best product on the field, don’t you want the top guys in the dugout pulling strings and coaching them through the season? If you don’t do that, then how can you say you’re fully invested in winning a World Series?

What Can Be Done?

At the end of the day, Rizzo has earned the benefit of the doubt here. Year after year he’s been the guy to make this team a contender. You can’t fire him right now after all he’s done for this franchise because of a bad start to this season.

The players aren’t going anywhere because they’re all under contract. You could DFA Grace or Dozier, but what’s that going to do for you in the grand scheme of things? You don’t save any money by doing that, and right now there isn’t anybody better in the Minor Leagues.

You can, however, fire Davey Martinez. Martinez makes $850,000 per year so the Lerners would have to eat whatever is left of his salary this year, plus the $850,000 next year. They are likely going to have to eat the $850,000 next year as it’s unlikely he’s back with the team following this season.

It’s potentially the only move the Nationals can make right now to give this team a jump-start. As Tom wrote about a couple of weeks ago, Matt LeCroy would be an excellent choice to fill in should the Nationals decide to part ways with Martinez.

There’s enough blame to go around for this disastrous start. The season is just over 25% complete, so on behalf of Nationals fans everywhere, please fire Martinez before it’s too late, bring LeCroy in and see what kind of comeback we can make.