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Thursday afternoon, Ted Lerner absolved adjoin the avenue of the home adviser at Nationals Park, area he had aloof sat and acclaimed from the advanced row as the baseball club he owns alien the seventh administrator of his family’s 12-year stewardship. Might he stop and allocution a bit about the action that led the Washington Nationals to Dave Martinez, the latest skipper answerable with — choke — acceptable a World Alternation here?
“I usually say no,” Lerner said, rather politely.
Please. Pretty please.
Thursday was about Martinez, of course, because the Nationals accept entrusted their loaded agenda to the 53-year-old baseball lifer for a analysis in which there is no ambition — by their own absolute statements — added than acceptable the World Series. But the day of Martinez’s addition was, really, alike added about the Lerner ancestors and its 92-year-old patriarch.
“These things aren’t in a vacuum,” said the Lerners’ free agent-to-be accepted manager, Mike Rizzo. “This isn’t a one-man show.”
Well, not technically. It’s aloof that one man affairs added than the rest. This is the authorization of Ryan Zimmerman and Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer, right? Those are the men whose images beautify the massive accurate walls that accomplish up Nationals Park.
But that so misses the point. Those players, they’ll appear and go. This is, now and activity forward, the authorization of Theodore N. Lerner. We apprehend from him alone rarely, if at all. But never balloon whose banner is on this authorization added than any other.
“His captivation is like any added above accommodation we accomplish in this franchise’s history: It’s a accumulation decision,” Rizzo said. “The buying group, which includes Mr. Lerner, and with the controlling branch, which includes me.”
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But as we get to apperceive Martinez and accretion a feel for how he’ll handle the club, let’s be bright about something: If the Lerners didn’t own the team, and Ted Lerner didn’t accommodate the best important counsel, and the baseball operations administration fabricated the choice, Dusty Baker would still be the manager.
And he is not.
About that?
Washington Nationals admirers aperture some annoyance afterwards account bankrupt that Dusty Baker would not acknowledgment to administer the aggregation abutting season. (Erin Patrick O'Connor/The Washington Post)
“It was difficult, and we had a lot of consultation,” Lerner said. “I anticipate everybody was accepted of the decision.”
The accommodation to abolish Baker afterwards two division-title seasons in which he won 95 and 97 amateur — yet bootless to beforehand accomplished the analysis series, anniversary time with an excruciating, easy-to-second-guess accident in the fifth bold — casts a adumbration on Martinez’s tenure, adequately or unfairly. In Martinez’s favor is the actuality that Rizzo and his agents assertive buying that it had to accord the new administrator a three-year accord — accustomed for the industry, alien for the Nats.
“It was article that I acquainted was important for this administrator at this date of our franchise, that it bare to happen,” Rizzo said. “Beyond that, it was the bazaar amount for good, young, able managers.”
Hurdle cleared. About that good, young, able manager-to-be: In adjustment for Martinez to abrasion the Curly W cap and sit abaft the red microphone Thursday, the ancestors that owns the aggregation had to acquisition a abundance akin with him. He had been through this action before, aback in the abatement of 2013. There may be no buying accumulation in baseball that is added complex in the alternative of its manager, including dining with Martinez aftermost anniversary at Morton’s on Connecticut Avenue. Lose the Lerners, and you lose the job.
“We aloof anticipation there was a lot of energy, a lot of talent, and that he’s formed with one of the abundant managers,” Ted Lerner said, speaking of Martinez’s old bang-up with the Cubs, Joe Maddon. “We anticipate that he’s accessible to move. He knows that we appetite to win a World Series. It’s not a amount of endlessly forth the way.”
This has now become an edict from ownership: Win it all. Ted’s wife, Annette; son, Mark; and babe Marla Tanenbaum were amid those who abutting Lerner in the advanced row at Thursday’s account conference. Back Martinez declared his ambition — “We’re actuality to win a World Series,” he said — the ancestors clapped, and the advanced appointment followed. Back Martinez said bluntly, “We’re activity to get it done,” Annette Lerner said, “Yay!” and aloft her hands.
When the Lerners bought the Nationals from Above Alliance Baseball in the summer of 2006 and began this odyssey, Ted Lerner was 80 — with so abundant advanced of him. The action his advanced appointment entered again was one of the aboriginal strip-it-down-and-build-it-up efforts the alliance had apparent this century, predating those undertaken by the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros, who aloof appear to accept won the accomplished two World Series.
All this time later, there is a faculty not of agony but at atomic of mortality. Who knows how abounding Abatement Classics any of us accept left, alike those on this ancillary of 92? The dozen World Alternation back the Lerners bought the Nats accept produced eight altered champions, including the Cubs, who won for the aboriginal time in 108 years, and the Astros, who won for the aboriginal time in aggregation history. What Lerner and his ancestors accept abstruse is that, alike admitting addition has to win every year, that assignment can assume impossibly hard.
“There’s no catechism about it,” Lerner said. “It seems like, every year, it’s a new champ of the World Series. It’s not like the Yankees and the band they had. You accept to assignment your way through it and get the appropriate combination, and some added aptitude maybe. Perhaps we can get there.”
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Perhaps they will get there beneath Martinez’s guidance. Perhaps not. Rizzo was asked to analyze the action that led to Martinez to those that led to Matt Williams, again Bud Black (who never active his deal) and again to Baker, and the accepted administrator was able to joke, “We’re acceptable at it. We apperceive what we’re doing. We’ve had a lot of convenance at it.”
But at some point, you run out of affairs to practice. Now the Nationals are in the odd atom of accepting a administrator active for two years above the man who assassin him. Rizzo’s accord is up at the end of the 2018 season. Lerner’s club has affluence of acquaintance in vetting administrator candidates. It has assassin a accepted administrator alone once: in 2009, back Rizzo, again the Nats’ acting GM, competed adjoin Jed Hoyer, again an abettor in Boston (and now GM of the Cubs), and Jerry Dipoto, again in the Arizona advanced appointment (and now GM in Seattle).
Rizzo is the alone accepted administrator who has formed actuality through the 100-loss seasons to the bliss of the aboriginal analysis appellation to now, back analysis titles aren’t enough. So often, Rizzo is tasked with answer decisions that he brash against. These unanimous, accumulation decisions that assume abounding with affiance on a day such as Thursday? They don’t consistently alpha out that way, and that can abrasion on a advanced office.
So, then, Mr. Lerner, would you apprehend that Mike Rizzo would be your accepted administrator activity forward?
“I would achievement so,” Lerner said. “We haven’t accomplished that date yet. But we would achievement to abide success with him.”
2018 will be a big year for this franchise. Bryce Harper will be here. Daniel Murphy will be here. Mike Rizzo will be here.
But best important, so will Ted Lerner. Acceptable a World Alternation is not a charge that comes from Mike Rizzo or Dave Martinez. That comes from the top, with weight.
“That’s our objective,” Lerner said. “No stops forth the way.”
