The Jeremy Jeffress experiment (not to be confused with the Fernando Rodney experience) lasted less than two weeks. As fast as he arrived to camp, he was gone again. As the Washington Nationals parted ways with the veteran reliever, they left a lot of us wondering what is going on with the situation.
Fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter, and we don’t need to know.
Jeremy Jeffress has been released by the Washington Nationals and they don’t owe us any further explanation of their decision.
When the Nationals decided Jeffress was no longer going to be a part of the organization, they said he was released for”personnel reasons”. This left unknowing fans outside the inner circle to dissect the words.
A checkered off-the-field history has plagued Jeffress for a long time, though the Nationals would have known this prior to bringing him into camp. He was only in camp 13 days, not long enough to sour the clubhouse one would think. We can speculate, though what good does that do? He’s gone. We need to move on.
#Nationals send up a red flag regarding P Jeremy Jeffress. They have released him for "personnel reasons" according to GM Mike Rizzo. That can mean anything, but none of what it could mean seems good to me. He was on a minor league contract, but spring training has just begun.
— Bernie Pleskoff (@BerniePleskoff) March 7, 2021
Seeing this happen just weeks into his tenure with the team, I couldn’t help but be reminded of 2018. Brandon Kintzler traded. Shawn Kelley designated for assignment, traded.
The Jeffress transaction falls in line with those. If you are going to be a distraction (or presumed clubhouse gossip) you aren’t going to play here. For Kelley, the famous Rizzo quote was uttered soon after:
"Either you’re with us or you’re working against us."
We’ll just assume Jeffress was either a distraction or he wasn’t working for us. And as of March 7th, he officially wasn’t working for the Nationals anymore.
It’s spring training, players are going to get cut. The reason doesn’t matter. The Nationals don’t need to clarify or give further detail. Jeffress is not a fan of how the situation was handled, but the bottom line is the Nats don’t need to please the now out-of-work reliever. They’ve washed their hands of this situation and are moving forward.
Time to focus on the goal at hand, and that is getting back to the postseason. Enough with the Jeffress talk.