WASHINGTON — With Friday’s announcement that Dusty Baker would not be retained after two seasons as Washington Nationals manager, the Nats will enter the 2018 campaign with the eighth different skipper in their 14 years of existence. Perhaps more tellingly, they’ll turn to the fourth different manager in just six seasons, the time during which they’ve held World Series aspirations.
The previous firings were, perhaps, more reasonable. Davey Johnson was sent packing after the 2012 upstarts slumped through much of 2013 as one of the least clutch teams of all time. Matt Williams got the ax after failing to back up 2014’s division title (and after showing he couldn’t learn from his mistakes) and watching the season implode as his rent-a-closer choke-slammed the franchise player on national television. Baker, meanwhile, managed the Nats to 95- and 97-win campaigns, coming up a run shy of advancing to the next round in consecutive Game 5s.
It all begs the question: What more do the Nats want?
After all, this certainly didn’t seem to be the plan as recently as a couple weeks ago.
"We talk every day, and we're both confident that he'll be back with us." — Mike Rizzo, Oct. 5, 2017
— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) October 20, 2017
Nationals GM Mike Rizzo said that money wasn’t an issue, and that the decision came down to one simple, central tenet.
“Our expectations have grown to the fact that winning a lot of regular-season games and winning divisions are not enough. Our goal is to win a world championship,” he said in a conference call Friday.
That’s obviously the case, but wasn’t that the goal going into 2013? Wasn’t it why Williams was brought in for 2014? Wasn’t it, supposedly, why Baker was brought in two years ago, when owner Ted Lerner proclaimed “we were looking for a manager to help us achieve our ultimate goal of competing for a World Series championship”?
But then, why hire Baker in the first place (part of the reason, in case you forgot, was that the organization low-balled their first choice, Bud Black, two years ago)? Baker’s regular-season success and ensuing playoff shortcomings have been exhaustively chronicled. He managed perhaps the greatest player in baseball history and couldn’t win a World Series.
Something, something … the definition of insanity … something, something.
The Nationals will enter 2018 as heavy favorites to win the NL East for a third straight season and the fourth time in five years. For the second time in four years, they finished as the only team with a winning record in the division. Outside the Nats, NL East teams have averaged just 74 wins over the past four seasons, finishing an average of 13 games under .500. On one hand, a division title seems almost preordained. On the other hand, there’s 2015.
Baker managed the Nats’ injury woes as well as could possibly be expected, and didn’t make any galling errors in Game 5, the way some of his players did. So, again, why is he out?
“It was one of the most difficult decisions that the ownership group and myself had to make since I’ve been in Washington,” said Rizzo.
That may be true, but the decision was still made. And simply saying that a World Series is the goal — five years after Davey Johnson’s infamous “World Series or bust” quote — is not really an answer. The lack of a satisfactory explanation begs the question of what else might have happened.
For instance, what really happened in Chicago? The 24-hour soap opera of Stephen Strasburg’s Game 4 will-he-or-won’t-he-start-tune-in-tomorrow-to-find-out! saga was overshadowed by another Game 5 implosion, but spoke to massive communications failures between the field staff, players and front office.
Speaking of story lines that have been buried, what about Jacque Jones? The assistant hitting coach came on board with Baker after his hire in 2015, after playing for him with the Cubs. Just before Game 1 the NLDS, Jones was hit with a lawsuit and suspended for an indefinite time (he was relieved of his position Friday, along with the rest of the coaching staff). The suit alleges that “agents, employees, and management of Defendant Washington Nationals knew of prior bad conduct” and that “after learning of this specific instance … Defendant Washington Nationals did nothing.”
Rizzo was not asked whether the lawsuit had any bearing on the team’s decision.
As for the timing, Baker was not exactly thrilled.
“They told me they would get back to me and I told them I was leaving town yesterday and they waited 10 days to tell me,” he told USA Today.
Clearly the calculus changed sometime in the last week or two, though it doesn’t seem like the Nationals have a concrete plan.
“After Game 5, we assessed where we’re at and where we’re going,” said Rizzo. “We’ll begin the process immediately.”
But Baker was supposed to be the one to push them over the top. Of course, so was Matt Williams. And now, as you peer out over the landscape of available prospects, there aren’t many obvious ones — at least not with the kind of experience that Baker brought. When asked whether the club would value experience in their search, as they had when they targeted Black, then Baker, Rizzo demurred.
“We’re gonna open up the list of the managerial search and we’re gonna do our due diligence and find the right person to get us to the next level and to get us to achieve the goals we’re looking to achieve.”
That was not a yes.
Could that mean Rizzo taking another gamble, as he did with Williams? Rizzo’s own contract is up after 2018. Experienced skippers such as John Farrell are out there; of course, his team also won the division the last two years only to lose in the first round of the playoffs. Tony LaRussa is a free agent again, after being released by the Diamondbacks this week. But could there be a move out of left field? Would ownership pay for it? And the way the last three guys have been run out of town, who would want the gig?
Rizzo said the front office and ownership took no input from players on the decision, meaning it was their decision, and it’s now their charge to fill the void they’ve created.
First, the plan was to bring in someone with the drive and discipline to push them over the top. When that failed, the plan was to find someone with the experience and temperament to lead. Now that that’s failed, the plan is … what, exactly?
