Washington Nationals: Who Deserves The Blame?
By Danny Kelly
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.