The Washington Nationals Thread: The Future is Near!

[Spaceman Spiff]

6 minutes ago, CRobi21 said:

Wonder if this was the reasoning for cutting out the pre/post game shows. So they could launch this..

 

They can kiss the fattest part of my ass.  No one gives a **** if you have an app if you have to have a cable subscription in order to make that app work.   This doesn't mean anything unless they're somehow now part of a YouTube TV package or some other streaming product like Hulu.  

[Riggo#44]

Just now, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

They can kiss the fattest part of my ass.  No one gives a **** if you have an app if you have to have a cable subscription in order to make that app work.   This doesn't mean anything unless they're somehow now part of a YouTube TV package or some other streaming product like Hulu.  

 

It's all well and good. MASN still sucks and there is little better in this world than sitting on my back porch, a nice cigar, listening to Charlie and Dave, in my rocking chair.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Just now, Riggo#44 said:

 

It's all well and good. MASN still sucks and there is little better in this world than sitting on my back porch, a nice cigar, listening to Charlie and Dave, in my rocking chair.

 

I can't wait for that.  Sitting on the back porch, a cigar, grilling, beer and listening to a baseball game.  I've had about enough of winter weather, even though it's been a mild one.

[Riggo#44]

3 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

I can't wait for that.  Sitting on the back porch, a cigar, grilling, beer and listening to a baseball game.  I've had about enough of winter weather, even though it's been a mild one.

 

And I have had enough of this COVID bull****...I want to be back in the stands so badly. We've been robbed of our victory lap, and I have a chest that needs thumping.

[Spaceman Spiff]

2 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

 

And I have had enough of this COVID bull****...I want to be back in the stands so badly. We've been robbed of our victory lap, and I have a chest that needs thumping.

 

I....thought you never stopped thumping your chest.

[Commander -JB-]

I find it hilarious that it seems there’s more doom & gloom surrounding the Nats (wonderful organization with tremendous ownership & excellent GM) than there is surrounding the WFT at this point.  Go over to The Stadium & everyone is on cloud 9 😂 

 

As if before 2019 season anybody thought there was really a chance in hell at a WS title after the 2018 debacle of a season.

Edited January 25, 2021 by -JB-

[Riggo#44]

5 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

I....thought you never stopped thumping your chest.

Oh...you haven't seen anything yet...

[Riggo#44]

27 minutes ago, -JB- said:

I find it hilarious that it seems there’s more doom & gloom surrounding the Nats (wonderful organization with tremendous ownership & excellent GM) than there is surrounding the WFT at this point.  Go over to The Stadium & everyone is on cloud 9 😂 

 

As if before 2019 season anybody thought there was really a chance in hell at a WS title after the 2018 debacle of a season.

 

WFT just made the playoffs, have a young, up-and-coming core. They have holes, but also have a ton of cap space. The Nats are seemingly on their way down, older, more expensive roster, with only a few young pieces (Soto, Turner, Robles, and a couple of unproven pitchers.) They also had a terrible 2020, in a truncated, farce of a season.

[Commander -JB-]

6 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

 

WFT just made the playoffs, have a young, up-and-coming core. They have holes, but also have a ton of cap space. The Nats are seemingly on their way down, older, more expensive roster, with only a few young pieces (Soto, Turner, Robles, and a couple of unproven pitchers.) They also had a terrible 2020, in a truncated, farce of a season.

WFT was 7-9 in a horrid division, have the worst owner in sports history, no history of any sustained success for going on 30 years, and haven’t won a SB or even been to a division title game since 1991.  

[Bacon]

39 minutes ago, -JB- said:

I find it hilarious that it seems there’s more doom & gloom surrounding the Nats (wonderful organization with tremendous ownership & excellent GM) than there is surrounding the WFT at this point.  Go over to The Stadium & everyone is on cloud 9 😂 

 

As if before 2019 season anybody thought there was really a chance in hell at a WS title after the 2018 debacle of a season.

 

Once our elderly pitching corps is finally put out to pasture, we will be the Angels for at least a few years. Once-in-a-generation player, a couple other impactful players in the lineup, no young pitching depth that we can rely on. We'll be too good to tank, but not deep enough to make the playoffs with any regularity.

 

It's frustrating, but nothing to despair over, because we were consistently great for 8 years and took advantage of our window. That's how professional sports work. 

[Commander -JB-]

14 minutes ago, Bacon said:

 

Once our elderly pitching corps is finally put out to pasture, we will be the Angels for at least a few years. Once-in-a-generation player, a couple other impactful players in the lineup, no young pitching depth that we can rely on. We'll be too good to tank, but not deep enough to make the playoffs with any regularity.

 

It's frustrating, but nothing to despair over, because we were consistently great for 8 years and took advantage of our window. That's how professional sports work. 

Elderly pitching core?  Is that a joke?  Sure Max is at the end of his luxurious career but Strasburg is in his prime (injury history aside he literally had the greatest postseason ever for a pitcher just in 2019 duh) & Corbin is “only” 31 years old.  Obviously we have young guys in the pipeline like Cavalli & Rutledge, Joe Ross is only 27 (injury history, sure).  Since when was signing Jon Lester to a one year deal to be your #4 starter become such a handicap?? That is luxury, my friend.  Check the rotations across the league.  The Nats have consistently competed for almost a decade.  Multiple 90 win seasons and division titles and a WS just a season ago and all of a sudden because of a down post WS season which wasn’t even a full true season and it’s the sky is suddenly falling? Mike Rizzo doesn’t get enough respect.  Neither do Nats ownership because they’ve shown a willingness to spend big to continuously compete.  They’ve continued to build the right way.  Unbelievable how they’ve turned it around in the international market & have become key players.  The Nationals are a tremendous organization and you cannot keep those near or at the top down for too long.  I can at least trust that.

Edited January 25, 2021 by -JB-

[Ball Security]

11 minutes ago, Bacon said:

 

Once our elderly pitching corps is finally put out to pasture, we will be the Angels for at least a few years. Once-in-a-generation player, a couple other impactful players in the lineup, no young pitching depth that we can rely on. We'll be too good to tank, but not deep enough to make the playoffs with any regularity.

 

It's frustrating, but nothing to despair over, because we were consistently great for 8 years and took advantage of our window. That's how professional sports work. 

It doesn’t have to be that way.  I’m not seeing Rizzo giving out crippling Pujols/Hamilton type contracts.  There’s work to be done, no doubt, but Rizzo has proven he can build teams through multiple ways: High-end FAs, Draft, International signings, trades, bargain FAs.

[Bacon]

5 minutes ago, -JB- said:

Elderly pitching core?  Is that a joke?  Sure Max is at the end of his luxurious career but Strasburg is in his prime (injury history aside he literally had the greatest postseason ever for a pitcher just in 2019 duh) & Corbin is “only” 31 years old.  Obviously we have young guys in the pipeline like Cavali & Rutledge, Joe Ross is only 27 (injury history, sure).  Since when was signing Jon Lester to a one year deal to be your #4 starter become such a handicap?? That is luxury, my friend.  Check the rotations across the league.  The Nats have consistently competed for almost a decade.  Multiple 90 win seasons and division titles and a WS just a season ago and all of a sudden because of a down post WS season which wasn’t even a full true season and it’s the sky is suddenly falling? Mike Rizzo doesn’t get enough respect.  Neither do Nats ownership because they’ve shown a willingness to spend big to continuously compete.  They’ve continued to build the right way.  Unbelievable how they’ve turned it around in the international market & have become key players.  The Nationals are a tremendous organization and you cannot keep those near or at the top down for too long.  I can at least trust that.

 

Our starting 4 was already the oldest in baseball and got even older with the Lester signing because he's a year older (37) than Anibal Sanchez (36). Yes, an average age of 34 is elderly, relatively speaking. That doesn't mean they can't be productive! I never said it was a less than great group. With a full offseason of rest, and barring injury, our rotation should rival anything the Braves have to offer. But what comes after Max and Lester are gone? We've been selling the farm for impact bats, which is what you're supposed to do when you can compete. But eventually the bill comes due.

 

There are two ways to interpret the current state of our farm pitching. The first is to see it for what it presently is relative to other teams. And if you do that, it looks uncertain. It's easy to wonder with dread, as I do, what our rotation will look like in a few years. On the other hand, you could look at it and say, OK, the results aren't there yet, but there's time for them to appear. Maybe some of our older prospects have great seasons and all of a sudden the future looks much brighter. It doesn't take much to change the outlook of a team because uncertainty is the scary part. 

 

You're right that Rizzo has earned the benefit of the doubt. He's made the most out of minimal resources time and time again. But he needs something to work with. If we don't want to become perennial sellers on the market, we need to restock the farm with productive picks. Our drafting of pitchers has been poor, but maybe Cavalli and Rutledge prove to be the young blood our rotation needs. If Joe Ross comes back fresh and effective after an extended time away from the game, that would be a boon for us.

[CRobi21]

So Nats broadcast team gets gutted, but I saw a tweet earlier that Baltimore's broadcast team is 8 people deep.....

 

 

 

Edited January 25, 2021 by CRobi21

[Commander -JB-]

4 minutes ago, Bacon said:

 

Our starting 4 was already the oldest in baseball and got even older with the Lester signing because he's a year older (37) than Anibal Sanchez (36). Yes, an average age of 34 is elderly, relatively speaking. That doesn't mean they can't be productive! I never said it was a less than great group. With a full offseason of rest, and barring injury, our rotation should rival anything the Braves have to offer. But what comes after Max and Lester are gone? We've been selling the farm for impact bats, which is what you're supposed to do when you can compete. But eventually the bill comes due.

 

There are two ways to interpret the current state of our farm pitching. The first is to see it for what it presently is relative to other teams. And if you do that, it looks uncertain. It's easy to wonder with dread, as I do, what our rotation will look like in a few years. On the other hand, you could look at it and say, OK, the results aren't there yet, but there's time for them to appear. Maybe some of our older prospects have great seasons and all of a sudden the future looks much brighter. It doesn't take much to change the outlook of a team because uncertainty is the scary part. 

 

You're right that Rizzo has earned the benefit of the doubt. He's made the most out of minimal resources time and time again. But he needs something to work with. If we don't want to become perennial sellers on the market, we need to restock the farm with productive picks. Our drafting of pitchers has been poor, but maybe Cavalli and Rutledge prove to be the young blood our rotation needs. If Joe Ross comes back fresh and effective after an extended time away from the game, that would be a boon for us.

Good points.  I, for one, always trust ownership/Rizzo to find the SP talent out on the open market.  Obviously the Scherzer contract is one of the very best free agent deals dating back to Randy Johnson in AZ & Maddux in ATL I believe.  For him to sign Corbin above what any other team wanted to offer and then in the following season win the WS with Corbin as a huge piece to that title was masterful.  I just look at the past to predict the future and I can’t foresee a time when Rizzo suddenly changes course/philosophy & starts making highly questionable moves.  Sure, he hasn’t continually nailed first round pitching prospects but honestly who does consistently?  Especially in the middle or towards the end of the first round yearly?  So many trades won that came out of nowhere & so many great free agent pickups over the years.  DiPuglia as his main man in the DR.  I see a bright future even if there have been times where I thought Rizzo would never be able to get over the hump.  2019 proved that thought process wrong and to just stick with the program.  Always question marks and always some room for some criticism.  I’m just in a very trusting mood with this organization from top to bottom.

[Riggo#44]

18 minutes ago, CRobi21 said:

So Nats broadcast team gets gutted, but I saw a tweet earlier that Baltimore's broadcast team is 8 people deep.....

 

MASN is such a joke. The courts really just need to end this farce of a "partnership"

[mammajamma]

excuse my ignorance (im out of market so i dont have to deal with MASN), but how long are the nats contractually tied to MASN? when can they get out of the "relationship"?

[Warhead36]

I'm not putting a dagger in this organization just yet. We still have good ownership and one of the best GMs out there. Maybe a down year or two but that happens to almost everyone. We'll bounce back. If you're good at the top, you don't stay down at the bottom for very long.

[@DCGoldPants]

This MASN **** needs to end. They owe Washington how much? $100m? Now they can't pay pre-game and post-game or bloggers? If the Nationals were free to negotiate their own broadcast deal and their own shows, I promise they'd do better than Angelos' kid or whoever is ****ing things up at MASN. 

[skinswillwin06]

2 hours ago, mammajamma said:

excuse my ignorance (im out of market so i dont have to deal with MASN), but how long are the nats contractually tied to MASN? when can they get out of the "relationship"?

Pretty sure they can't get out. Or maybe they could if they buy themselves out, not really sure.

Edited January 25, 2021 by skinswillwin06

[Commander -JB-]

Welp.

 

The Major League Baseball Players Association has turned down the latest MLB proposal for the universal designated hitter and an expanded playoff format, sources confirmed to ESPN.

[Bacon]

Good.

[skinfan2k]

28 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Good.

that postseason and DH is so phony.  back to real baseball 

[CRobi21]

 

[bearrock]

20 hours ago, mammajamma said:

excuse my ignorance (im out of market so i dont have to deal with MASN), but how long are the nats contractually tied to MASN? when can they get out of the "relationship"?

 

It's perpetual.  Nats get annual increase of 1% in ownership until it hits 2/3 Baltimore, 1/3 DC.  

 

It's time to break the glass.  Angelos has always played the MLB with the unspoken threat of burning down the house out of spite if MLB went too far against him.  Lerners need to grow a backbone and say such threat will always exist and it's naive for MLB to think that Angelos' death will extinguish the threat of a rogue owner shaking the foundation of antitrust exemption. 

 

The primary threat is no longer even limited to the owners themselves, but the slow turning of the tides.  Antitrust exemption will disappear at some point, whether by legislation or by increasing recognition in the judiciary of the cognitive dissonance that holds up baseball's hallowed protection. 

 

Given that, Angelos' threat is a hollow one.  He could be the spark that starts the fire, but the fire is inevitable anyway.  MLB needs to wisen up and do what any other multibillion dollar corporations do: protect their business interest within the confines of the Sherman Act.  And stop quaking in their boots and call out Angelos on his BS and dissolve MASN once and for all.