WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 9, 2018: Jayson Werth hugs Mark Lerner with Ted Lerner looking on during a pregame ceremony for Werth’s induction into the National’s Ring of Honor Saturday night. (Marlene Koenig for TalkNats)
The Washington Nationals should have the year of 2025 circled as their year to really compete for a postseason berth. When Ted Lerner was running the team, he had a vision for the future of building a champion. You take your lumps when you are a bad team, and like any builder knows, it’s all about the process. Some have compared it to sausage making. Lerner had said it was not too different from building a business from scratch.
The team was a mess when the family bought it in mid-2006 with the worst farm system in baseball. It basically had Ian Desmond and that was about it. The team Lerner bought had a decimated farm system from the Expos’ years of bad drafts, awful decisions, and the Bartolo Colon trade in 2002 that cost the “future” team Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips, Grady Sizemore and Lee Stevens. After the season, the Expos traded Colon with only 17-games pitched in a Montreal uni, for a haul of nothing. None of those players were around when the Expos became the Nats two years later. That Colon trade gave away a haul reminiscent of the Juan Soto trade. Cleveland got three minor leaguers in Lee, Phillips, and Sizemore and before you know it, each had gone to multiple All-Star games after the trade. Continue reading
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