When you read criticisms of the Washington Nationals, it usually gets pointed squarely and fully at the Lerner ownership group. To read a new article by The Athletic titled, “Nationals remain among MLB’s bottom feeders despite lengthy rebuild,” the negativity was mostly focused on general manager and president of baseball operations, Mike Rizzo. The article speaks to failures in scouting, drafting, and player development. But the article cherry-picked stats and situations to bolster the writer’s negative tone in the article.
The author, Ken Rosenthal, begins his article with some criticism of ownership in sharing some of the blame. But as you read into the article, it really dives into Rizzo’s record in the past 12-years. Why that timeframe? Rosenthal clearly decided to use that line of demarcation in time to exclude the 2012 draft of Lucas Giolito, and drafts of Anthony Rendon, Bryce Harper, Robbie Ray, and Stephen Strasburg before that. All five of those players turned into future All-Stars, and Harper is on a Hall-of-Fame track. When your objective is to write a negative article, some writers conveniently pick a starting line that enhances their point. Rosenthal used a lot of facts in his article, but also left out some important context.
Fortunately for Rizzo, The Athletic didn’t delve into his history of free agent signings as the article’s photo shows a pained Josh Bell walking away from the plate after a strikeout. Articles in The Athletic are behind a paywall. We are not going to copy and paste the entire article. There are some key points to highlight for clarity:
“A perhaps even bigger problem is the team’s failures in player development, as well as amateur and international scouting, going back more than a decade — failures that president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo’s … can mask only so much.”
— Rosenthal writes in his article
When you get called a “bottom feeder” in the title and the first paragraph, you knew that you were going to get a heavy dose of negativity from Rosenthal. You would have to look real hard for a positive article from Rosenthal on the Nationals who were relevant for over a decade of the Lerner/Rizzo era from 2011 to July 2021. It was the trade deadline in 2021 when the team made the decision that they were going to enter a re-tool and traded Max Scherzer as a rental and a 1⅓ seasons of Trea Turner, plus other pending free agents.
Remember, the Nats won the World Series in 2019 and Rosenthal was pouncing on the Nats in May of 2019 when the team was scuffling. Find a positive article authored by Rosenthal. It just feels personal.
Again, Rosenthal used a lot of facts to backup the negativity. What we see is Rizzo is the focus of the article in which 21 of the 26 paragraphs are mostly centered on his side of the aisle. Rosenthal, like many Nats’ fans, pondered if this rebuild will ever turn to winning? That is part of the unknown — but there are definitely good signs if you want to see some of the positives looking forward.
Rosenthal wrote, “Even if the Nationals raise hope of a turnaround by avoiding their seventh straight losing season, their timing might be off.” But Rosenthal’s timing is what is off. The Nats have five losing seasons from 2020-2024 in the books. If the Nats lose this year, that would be six years. Hmmm.
Also to note, the team was still spending in 2020 and 2021. They entered 2022 in a rebuild, and invested $15 million in Nelson Cruz in one of Rizzo’s worst one-year deals. They tore it down, and the re-tool looked like a full rebuild. The team slashed spending in 2023 and 2024 which is what you do in a rebuild. This past offseason is what brought a lot of angst into the fold as the team didn’t invest in any long-term free agents.
“This is a reboot year. We don’t call it a rebuild because a rebuild is a five- or six-year process. I think this is a shorter reboot. We’ve shown in the past we know how to do these things.”
— Rizzo told the Sports Junkies on WFJK 106.7 in July 2022
In the final paragraph, Rosenthal wraps up his article with, “ … the promise of a shorter reboot is gone. And time no longer is on the Nationals’ side.” Fine, Rizzo’s optimism of a shorter reboot didn’t happen. But why did Rosenthal conclude that time is no longer on the Nationals’ side?
On the timeline, MacKenzie Gore has two years of team control after this year remaining. CJ Abrams has three years remaining beyond this season. But that doesn’t mean the rebuild won’t work. It just could mean that those two key players won’t be part of the next window of winning. For instance, Jordan Zimmermann, Ian Desmond, and Bryce Harper weren’t parts of the Nationals’ World Series win in 2019, even though they were key components of the start of the years of contention and the first NL East crown in 2012.
Not every player has to be around for the next championship. And by the way, the team made lucrative offers to Zimmermann, Desmond, and Harper to extend with the team. They all declined, seeking greener pastures. Unlike other sports, MLB has no star-retention program as part of the CBA. Rizzo often says, “It takes two to tango.”
In the article, the top players were given some positive accolades, but shade thrown on the Nats that they probably won’t retain any player going forward past their years of team control. The article does fairly mention how difficult it is to retain players who have Scott Boras as their agent, and Rosenthal names Gore, James Wood and Dylan Crews as Boras’ clients.
Rosenthal made a point that since 2013, the Nationals have drafted and developed only three players with career bWARs above 5.0. Those three — Nick Pivetta, Erick Fedde, Jesús Luzardo — made their progress with other teams as Rosenthal pointed out. Again, the prior decade was dismal in drafting and developing — but that decade does include Juan Soto who conveniently got left out of the equation because he was an international amateur. Rosenthal further points out all of the international failures under Rizzo’s leadership and the money wasted on bad signings.
If Rosenthal wanted to compliment Rizzo, the writer could have given credit for a lot of great trades over the years which have really been a huge part of the successes. Look at how this 2025 roster was assembled. The roster has a large number of players acquired through trades as we list them in chronological order: Keibert Ruiz, Gore, Abrams, James Wood, Robert Hassell III, Riley Adams, Jose Tena and Nathaniel Lowe. That is 1/3rd of the Nats entire active roster.
Last week before the outfield injuries, the Nats had 10 players on the active roster who were homegrown talent, and that is the largest number we have seen in years. That could grow larger if players like Brady House get a call-up.
What about giving Rizzo some credit for making the difficult decisions to overhaul every aspect of his front office in the past five years. Rizzo created a draft department that was beefed up under Danny Haas who has been with the team for less than two years. This new draft group ran their first draft a year ago. The player development group under Eddie Longosz is two years old. The international free agent group has been transformed over a longer period that was finalized in the past year. Dredging up old stats that were attached to department heads who are no longer there, doesn’t seem fair.
When you cover the team daily, you see the good and the bad. Hindsight geniuses are everywhere. Rizzo has to make decisions in the moment. Of course he would like to go back and correct some mistakes. He is human. Rosenthal picked an odd time to publish this piece. If he wrote it before the 2023 draft, it might have made more sense with all of the unknowns. This current draft group didn’t pick Carter Kieboom, Seth Romero, or Elijah Green. The current international scouting group didn’t sign Yasel Antuna or Armando Cruz. The current player development group didn’t go through years of failures.
Again, the failures are easy to point to. The successes are there and not hard to see especially in all of the prospect capital that Rizzo used for trades. The 2019 World Series championship is proof that many aspects of the system worked. While the issues in the draft and player development systems could have worked better, judging them becomes very subjective.
Also, you can see through the farm rankings and individual player rankings that player development does seem to be improving with the Washington Nationals. But in the same breath, you have to wonder in the past if the drafting is more of the problem in the selection of the players, where it’s “not the teacher, but the student” as the problem.
Rosenthal looked at the team’s player development system since 2013. Yes, right now it looks dismal with that hindsight look at that period. However, we are finally seeing some draft picks making an impact at the MLB level. International signings are showing progress again. On drafted players, Rosenthal mentions current Nats’ players who were acquired through the draft like right-hander Jake Irvin (4.3 bWAR), center fielder Jacob Young (3.6) and lefty Mitchell Parker (1.3) and then writes about the three, “But none appear headed for stardom.” Irvin put up legitimate All-Star numbers by selection-day last year, and was a snub. While stardom is hard to achieve, you need solid players on a roster too. All three have been positive contributors.
Getting negative is easy, and Rosenthal wrote what he wrote. He might be proven right in the end. But there is a reason we play the games, and time is still on Rizzo’s side. Hopefully this motivates the Nationals hierarchy even more. Time will tell, and this will be an article to revisit. Everyone will have their own opinions either way. Many will agree with Rosenthal based on the way the wind is blowing.
Ouch. That is how most of Rosenthal’s article went. If anything positive was written, it was wiped out like a back-handed compliment.
