Nationals facing crucial decisions this offseason
The last shreds of confetti are gone now.
His clothes no longer reek of alcohol. He can finally pass a sobriety test.
And, yes, like most of his players, he finally is wearing a shirt again.
Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo boarded a plane Monday morning for baseball’s annual General Manager Meetings in Scottsdale, and after 10 days of parades, parties, a courtside seat at a Washington Wizards game, a suite and late-night rendezvous at a Washington Caps game, a wee-hoursof-the-morning casino run, a Sunday morning Fox News appearance, and a controversial White House visit, reality has hit him in the face like a 6 a.m. wakeup call .
You’re a World Series champion one minute, partying the entire night, not stopping until emptying out every minibar on the entire floor of the Four Seasons in Houston. The next, you’re cold sober on the telephone with agent Scott Boras, trying to convince him that Anthony Rendon and Stephen Strasburg should return for a chance of a repeat.
“Life as I knew it before has changed,” Rizzo tells USA TODAY Sports. “It’s been crazy. Completely different than anything I imagined. We took Washington, D.C., by storm.
“But we’ll be busy now. We have to be busy. We have a lot of moves to make.”
And a lot of checks to write if they hope to bring back Rendon and Strasburg,
who’ll cost in the neighborhood of $400 million total to bring back as free agents.
Still, just because the Nats won the first World Series in franchise history, with five playoff berths and more regular-season victories than anyone but the Los Angeles Dodgers in the last eight years, they don’t plan to just sit back and soak in the memories.
“There’s nothing that has changed, at least in my mind,” Rizzo says. “My incentive, my wiliness to win, my crazy appetite to win a championship, to win another World Series, is the same. I have the same drive. I have the same hunger. The same willingness to do what’s needed to do to put together a team to compete into late October, and make another run, that hasn’t changed one bit.
“We talked to Scott. He knows what we think of them. The players know what we think of them. They both know that we’d like to bring them both back. If the numbers work, we want them both back. We want to be aggressive.
“But it’s just like (Bryce) Harper. It’s a two-way street. They earned the right to be free agents and look at other teams, but you can’t be held hostage by any player.”
The Nationals offered Harper a 10year, $300 million deferred contract at the end of the 2018 season, but when he rejected it, the Nats moved on, spent $140 million on starter Patrick Corbin, and 11 months later, were World Series champions.
It’s no different now. If Rendon, who was offered about $215 million during the season takes too much time deciding whether he wants to return, the Nats could turn to third basemen Josh Donaldson
or Mike Moustakas. If Strasburg is undecided, the Nats could move on to the second-tier market, knowing they’ll still have Max Scherzer and Corbin.
“I need to construct a roster that’s a 90-winnish team,” says Rizzo, with 11 of his players becoming free agents. “A good year, win 95. A bad year, win 85 and try to make the playoffs. We’re going to try to make every effort to sign them, but we’ll see.”
Hopefully, sheer memories of their zany celebration, Rizzo says, will help lure Rendon and Strasburg back, a time that none of them will ever forget.
It began with Nats reliever Daniel Hudson striking out Michael Brantley for the final out in Game 7 on Wednesday, Oct. 30, with the Nats turning Minute Maid Park into a mosh pit. They celebrated through the night, and when they returned to their hotel, they raided every mini-bar they could find until the continental breakfast.
“I don’t know what the bill was, or how much those little bottles cost,” Rizzo said, “but we drank every one of them.”
They arrived back in Washington, D.C., on Thursday afternoon, and two days later, were on parade floats being serenaded throughout the District, celebrating the first World Series championship by a Washington team since 1924.
“The parade was nothing like I ever experienced in my life,” Rizzo says. “This thing was crazy. There were red shirts beyond the eye could see. I was on the last float with all of the trophies, (first baseman) Ryan Zimmerman and (manager) Davey Martinez and their families. It was unreal.
“When we turned onto (Constitution Avenue), and the confetti cannons went off, and you saw the horde of people in red shirts screaming at the top of their lungs, tears came out. It was the coolest and most emotional time I ever had other than the last out in Game 7.”
Rizzo made sure the party didn’t stop. He hosted a bash for the entire organization at the Penn Quarter Sports Tavern. It lasted until 4 a.m. The bar bill: $25,000.
He slept 90 minutes, and was up getting ready for Sunday morning on Fox News where he was on with Chris Wallace. “So I have no sleep, I have to put on a suit and tie, I have to carry the trophy, and I have to be on national TV on a political show,” Rizzo says. “People said I didn’t look too bad. I don’t know how I pulled that off.”
The next day, it was off to the Capitals’ game where they were honored before the game, and turned the night into a boozed frenzy. There was outfielder Adam Eaton paying homage to Capitals’ T.J. Oshie by drinking a beer through his jersey. Eaton, Brian Dozier and several of their teammates jumped on the zamboni between the second and third periods. Afterwards, they all had their shirts off and were skating and shooting pucks until 3:30 in the morning, with Rizzo using Oshie’s stick while trying to hang onto his beer. And then they all went over to the casino for a final few rounds.
“It was,” Rizzo says, “a magical night.” The next day, it was a White House visit.
Rizzo, one of owner Ted Lerner’s first hires after purchasing the Nationals in 2006, would love to make the party last until at least the next presidential election. It would make life a lot easier, of course, if Rendon and Strasburg are back.