These days, the quickest route to 10-digit wealth is software. Geniuses with little business sense — but the right connections — just needed to program the right algorithm. In the old days, wealth was built by taking chances on tangible assets. Steel, automobiles, and real estate. Many risked every dollar they had — and went broke. Not every business idea will succeed. Have you ever seen the show Shark Tank?
The visionary with $250 in the 1940ˢ saw suburban real estate near the I-495 Washington beltway as his target markets. In the late 1950ˢ, he built the 6th largest shopping center in America and the largest in the Washington, DC area. Located in middle class Wheaton, Maryland, the entrepreneur attracted the finest tenants at the time, and the President of the United States. He later enclosed the shopping center to create the mall concept so shoppers could move about without getting rained on. He replicated the process in Landover, Maryland and then in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. His name was Ted Lerner.
Lerner’s wealth was built over decades, and his love of sports led to an unsuccessful bid to purchase of the Washington Redskins from the Cooke estate. He would later become a minority partner with Ted Leonsis’s Monumental Sports & Entertainment. In 2006, Lerner would buy the Washington Nationals from Major League Baseball. A team with a depleted farm system ranked the worst in baseball in mid-2006, and a team that would lose 91-games. His trusted advisor, Stan Kasten, had what he referred to as “the plan.” That blueprint had them follow a course of rebuilding the farm system and “tanking” until the top prospects were ready to win.
“The plan” and “tanking” and “losing” put a target on Lerner’s back. Sports radio shows were creating narratives that Lerner was going to take your money but never spend it. But like he did in his real estate company, Lerner held firm to give “the plan” time, because he knew that you construct a building the same way. From an ugly hole in the ground, you build up. Some cannot envision from a blueprint what the final product will become.
Finally, in December 2010, it was time. Lerner would greenlight the overpay for Jayson Werth because he saw the intangible value in Werth’s leadership abilities. Lerner committed a contract to Werth that would total about 25 percent of the amount that he paid for the team. The baseball world was in shock because 9-digit contracts were reserved for only the wealthiest teams. The Nats had bottom of the league attendance, a lousy TV deal, and a poor public image at the time. Lerner knew that winning would open the turnstiles to fans returning.
During Werth’s first season, the roster turned over from malcontents like Elijah Dukes and Nyjer Morgan to players who embraced the team concept — and winning. That 2011 team improved by 12 fewer losses. While Werth wasn’t the star, players like Wilson Ramos and Jordan Zimmermann were the top WAR players on that roster. Stephen Strasburg made a cameo at the end of that season to return from his UCL surgery, and it didn’t take a visionary at that point to know that something special was about to happen in Washington baseball.
We all know how the rest of the story went in 2012 with the first playoff team. But Lerner thought he would have won a World Series before 2019. His 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 rosters were the tops in baseball on paper and averaged the most in payroll over that 4-year span. Lerner was spending in excess of what the team was bringing in. The windfall of a World Series win would make it all worth it — but nobody could have foreseen that stadiums would be closed to fans in 2020 for the COVID pandemic. Just like the plummeting attendance — the Nats got old quickly and failed to win.
The team would turnover and Lerner passed away during his final rebuild before the 2023 season. If Ted Lerner was in-charge today, you know he would be looking for his new Werth circa 2025. That player is Alex Bregman. A leader. A tireless worker. A winner. Just like Werth, a player whose age is over-30 and 9-figure payroll demands. Both share the same agent, Scott Boras. And Bregman is actually a year younger than Werth in their respective free agent year.
While I am sure Ted Lerner would sign Bregman, I am not sure Ted’s son, Mark Lerner, the current principal owner, would do that deal. That’s where we are today. The great unknown. You sign Bregman, and you probably improve by at least 12-losses to 79-losses or better. That would mean a winning record of 83-79.
Look across town at the Washington Commanders. They flipped the script from decades of losing to a magical 2024/2025 season. As their new owner, Josh Harris, said, “Talent, people, culture,” as the keys to winning. He brought in a new coach who took his former team to a Super Bowl, a GM who was an executive for a team that went to a Super Bowl, and two new quarterbacks, Jayden Daniels and Marcus Mariota, who won Heisman Trophies. They brought in other players too. Their script is still being written. But choosing the right talent and people, and building a winning culture got them to this point. At the very least they have exceeded what the Nationals did in 2012. Are they on a 2019 trajectory? Will they have a decade of dominance? The future will tell.
What Werth taught us is that players like himself and Ryan Zimmerman did not have to be the best individual players on the team — rather they would be there as the veterans to make the roster better and raise everyone up. Sometimes you need that lucky bounce.
“In the playoffs, you have to get a couple lucky bounces. I’ve seen it the other way where the other team gets a couple lucky bounces go their way. It’s a wacky game.”
— Ryan Zimmerman said before the 2019 postseason
Figuratively, a few things go your way, and you can go from terrible to lovable quickly. Mike Rizzo, President of Baseball Operation and General Manager, has said multiple times that this youth movement is the best he’s ever had. But in the offseason before 2011, he had a different boss. A man who could see the future.
