Nats GM back to baseball business
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – The last shreds of confetti are gone now.
His clothes no longer reek of alcohol.
And, yes, like most of his players, he finally is wearing a shirt again.
Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo boarded a plane Monday morning for baseball’s annual general manager meetings in Scottsdale. After 10 days of parades, parties, a courtside seat at a Wizards game, a suite and late-night rendezvous at a Capitals game, a wee-hours-of-themorning casino run, a Sunday morning Fox News appearance and a White House visit, reality has hit him in the face like a 6 a.m. wake-up 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 will cost in the neighborhood of $400 million total to bring back as free agents.
Still, just because the Nationals won the first World Se
ries in franchise history, with five playoff berths and more regular-season victories than anyone but the 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 team 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 Nationals could turn to third basemen Josh Donaldson or Mike Moustakas.
If Strasburg is undecided, the Nationals 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 reliever Daniel Hudson striking out Michael Brantley for the final out in Game 7 on Wednesday, Oct. 30, with the Nationals turning Minute Maid Park into a mosh pit. They celebrated through the night, and when they returned to their hotel, they raided every minibar 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 on Halloween 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 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 the Nationals were honored before the game and turned the night into a boozed frenzy. There was outfielder Adam Eaton paying homage to the 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. Afterward, 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 on to his beer. Then they all went over to the casino for a final few rounds.
“It was a magical night,” Rizzo says. The next day, it was a White House visit, where the Nats caught heat for being chummy with President Donald Trump and catcher Kurt Suzuki was ripped for donning a “Make America Great Again” cap.
“We weren’t trying to make a political statement whatsoever,” Rizzo says. “We just thought that the honor and the tradition of champions being invited to the White House and the office of the president, and especially us being the hometown team in their backyard two miles away from the capital, is something that should be done.
“Obviously, each player could make their own decision whether they wanted to attend, but most of the players were excited by it.
“You’re in a situation where you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I don’t have a political bone in my body. I vote for who I want. I don’t care what the party is. I vote every election. I’m listed as an Independent. My dad was a city worker in the city of Chicago for 45 years. We voted Democrat for the (Richard) Daleys a lot. I voted Republican sometimes.
“The office of the president is something that we respect. We felt we should be there. We also felt we should do it with everyone still in town there or not do it at all.
“The hardest part, really, was just making it there after such a long night after the hockey game.”
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.
Then again, it would be much easier for the Lerners, too, if Rizzo sticks around. He is in the final year of his contract, paying him $4 million in 2020.
“I understand you’re only as good as your last season, but what has transpired here has been unbelievable. There’s just a different feeling in the whole city. Everyone is upbeat, happy and in a better mood.
“This goes beyond baseball. It’s crazy what has happened here.”