LOVERRO: The bargain-basement Nationals kneecapped by ownership

With another spring training underway in West Palm Beach, Washington Nationals fans deserve better.

Nationals fans deserve better than four straight losing seasons and counting.

Nationals fans deserve better than a silent winter, with virtually no pulse from the team and nearly no sign that there is a baseball franchise in the nation’s capital.

Did you catch the team’s winter NatsFest? Or maybe a weekend winter caravan? Neither did I.

Nationals fans deserve better than owners who lie to their faces.

I don’t know what else to call the hollow words Mark Lerner, managing principal owner of the team, spoke to team announcer Dan Kolko at the end of the 2023 season about the family’s commitment to the franchise and general manager Mike Rizzo’s team building.

“We are totally in on building this back to where we all expect it to be, to where our fans expect it to be,” Lerner told Kolko in a Nats Xtra interview. “It’s his call how he wants to fill the holes in the lineup. He comes to me when he is ready, whether it’s a player or a free agent or whatever. Whatever he desires he has the resources and he has always had the resources since the day we took over the team to build a winner.”

Numbers are always funny, but not even funny numbers can hide the lack of financial support by the Lerners for the team on the field. Going into this season, Washington’s competitive balance tax payroll number is about $126 million. But that includes the Stephen Strasburg contract albatross, the Max Scherzer deferral payments and other deferrals.

The reality is the Nationals payroll for the players who will likely be on the opening-day roster is nearly half that. Their big offseason financial commitment consisted of 30-year-old free agent first baseman Joey Gallo — he of the career .197 batting average — and a group of other spare parts that add up to about $6 million (Gallo’s $5 million contract for this year is partially deferred). This may be the least amount of money this team has spent on offseason acquisitions in many years.

Are we really to believe that Rizzo told the Lerners, “No, that’s OK, I’m fine with this spending. No, go ahead, you guys hang on to your money. I’m good with a below bargain basement payroll.”

Rizzo said he would not discuss his conversations with the Lerners. His response was, as it consistently has been, “Ownership has always given us the resources when the time is right.”

But we are not talking about a spending spree or $100 million free-agent contracts. We are talking about maybe $30 million or $40 million more to attempt to make the team more competitive on the field— an important part of the development of the good young players the Nationals do have on their roster and coming up in the system.

Washington accomplished more than was expected last season, with 71 wins — a 16-win improvement over 2022 — by fielding a team of spare parts and young, inexperienced players. 

That was a step forward. The next step would be to play meaningful games in the wild card atmosphere of September. That is also an important part of player development — giving them the experience of those games instead of September snoozefests.

That means perhaps putting enough talent together to reach for an 80-plus win season — which puts you in the wild card race. Last year’s National League wild card teams, the Miami Marlins and the Arizona Diamondbacks, both made the playoffs with 84 regular season victories. 

We are not talking about a wild card for Washington this season — just a few games that might give them the feeling of being within striking distance. Those games offer valuable lessons.

If the franchise really believes in its young players, complementing them with quality veterans in the lineup and on the mound would be proof. And signing some free agents to longer-term contracts to still be there when the young players are more mature would also be proof — unless you think the Nationals are like the Baltimore Orioles, able to field a fully homegrown championship team.

Ouch. That hurt, didn’t it?

Instead, we get proof of the ownership’s contempt for Nationals fans.

Supposedly, the team remains for sale, but that remains murky. Sources have said that there is a divide in the family over the future of the team. Mark Lerner allegedly wants to keep the team, though who knows why. They have reportedly sought north of $2 billion for the sale. Good luck with that after the Orioles sales price was set at $1.725 billion -— with the buyer in Baltimore, David Rubenstein, once part of Ted Leonsis’ bid to buy the Nationals. 

Transparent Ted, in his public relations tour promoting moving the Capitals and Wizards out of the District to a new Potomac Yards arena, told Fox5 DC last week he is still interested in buying the baseball team. 

Nationals fans deserve better.

• You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.