Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez is looking forward to Sunday night’s MLB First-Year Player Draft. His team will have the second pick in the draft and appears to be a lock to get one of the two most highly-rated college prospects — pitcher Paul Skenes or his LSU teammate, outfielder Dylan Crews.
He’s hoping to be around for more than a handshake and a hello from the team’s next potential star. Right now, that’s up in the air.
Martinez’s contract ends at the end of this season — as does the contract of the man who will run the draft Sunday, Mike Rizzo, the president of baseball operations.
The Lerner family signed both to two-year contracts in 2020 and then exercised their club option last July. There are no more options — except to sign one or both to new deals or let them walk.
That is certainly complicated by the notion that the Lerners are likely selling the franchise. Or not. Nobody seems to be sure, which hangs over everyone in the organization, particularly the baseball decision-makers in the front office, on the field, and the players themselves.
“We don’t really know what’s going on,” one club official told me.
In case the message has gotten lost among the owners, Martinez wants to make it clear — he wants to be here to help lead the new Nationals’ top pick and the rest of the promising young players in their system to another World Series championship.
“I love it here,” he told me. “I want to see this through. I want to win another championship here. I hope they view me as the guy who can lead them to another championship. I definitely want to be here.
Typically, a lame-duck manager has a difficult time doing his job in a clubhouse where veteran players figure they will be here when their skipper is gone and tune out his messages.
The Nationals are not that kind of clubhouse. It’s a mixture of young players in the early days of their careers and spare parts from other teams fighting to hang on to their major league careers. They’ve shown no signs of dismissing what their manager is preaching. On the contrary, this team has played hard.
I know this drives the keyboard managers crazy because there is no metric for this, but 80% of the managing job in today’s game involves managing personal relationships and the personalities on your team. Martinez has proven to be excellent at this, whether it’s been the veterans on the 2019 World Series championship squad or the youngsters he manages today. The main reason they are 34-53 is simply that they are not very good — a lack of talent.
They were swept in four games by the Cincinnati Reds this week primarily because the gap in talent is that great.
Even among the young players, Martinez’s future is a source of discussion. They have enough to deal with learning how to be major league players. They don’t need the distractions.
The assumption is that with the latest settlement between MASN and the Nationals, a significant roadblock that was holding up the Lerners from selling the franchise has now been removed.
However, there remains another five-year revenue share to negotiate between the two, and there is little reason to believe that will go smoothly — or, once that is done, the actual negotiations to buy the team from the Lerners, who have a well-earned reputation for being difficult in business dealings.
With all this uncertainty, the family faces this important decision about extending the contract of Martinez and Rizzo. It’s difficult to believe that the sale wouldn’t be more complicated if the Lerners decided to make leadership changes in the middle of all this.
Sunday night will be a big step in that rebuild — not just with the No. 2 pick in the draft. The Nationals have the first selection in the second round — the 40th pick because of the competitive balance round from 30 to 39 — and that one is seen as crucial. “We’ve got to get that 40th pick right,” a club official said.
If there are new owners, do they want an immediate change in this process, with new decision-makers in charge? No, this team — Rizzo and Martinez — are the ones you want to see it through.
⦁ You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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