Yin and Yang are not simply opposing forces, but rather complementary and interdependent aspects that bring everything together. This Washington Nationals team is made up of 26 different types of personalities. You must have the right mix of yin and yang for the perfect balance to get the desired energy. You need your Brian Dozier and Adam Eaton types to bring the team together in harmonic flow.
With CJ Abrams on the 10-day IL, and half of the roster hitting below Mendoza, you can see why some of the rah-rah guys are quiet. You can’t lead by example when you are hitting below your weight, so you tend to stay in the shadows. Some of the most energetic guys are struggling.
Basically half of your lineup is in Mendoza-ville, and some of the hottest hitters are in recent funks like Keibert Ruiz on a 1-14 skid since Sunday, and Alex Call is 2-14 in the past five days. It has been 10 days since Ruiz had an extra base hit. As of today, Abrams would be the team’s OPS leader at .874, and he won’t be eligible to return until next week if he is healthy — and the Nats might decide to send Abrams on a rehab assignment. No telling when he will return.
One thing that manager Dave Martinez was right about was that you should be having fun, of course at appropriate times. In a closed door meeting with the bullpen staff, “I just want them to go out there, relax, and just go have fun.” The whole team should follow that advice. Yesterday, TalkNats suggested the team needs a home run prop which has added dugout fun and energy in the past.
They say that good decisions bring good results. Have general manager Mike Rizzo and Martinez been making good decisions? It started last August when the entire coaching staff was extended through the 2025 season. That’s just great that all of the coaching staff really like each other. Where are the results? Who is going to make the struggling players perform better? This is a results business. Time to change the culture back to a winning culture.
Things can turn quickly, and players can get on hot streaks to better their numbers. None of this is an indictment on a particular player. Rather you have to question the process in putting this roster together. However if we go by the numbers, Rizzo’s offseason in free agent signings is looking a bit rough right now.
As comments have been made by TalkNats breaking the news that the budget was set at $50 million in new spending for the 2025 season, every dollar got spent, and Rizzo went a little over that number. But the question was how he spent it. We can really only fairly assess this in hindsight given the small sample sizes.
With Derek Law and DJ Herz starting the season on the IL, it turned out that maybe it was prudent to get two new starting pitchers — but the newly acquired Michael Soroka quickly landed on the 15-day IL himself.
The bullpen was in need of bringing in a closer which Rizzo took care of with re-signing Kyle Finnegan. How’s about filling the other spots in the bullpen? There were dozens of available relievers in free agency. Rizzo made the decision to sign Lucas Sims, Jorge Lopez, and Colin Poche. They combine for nearly -2.0 WAR combined and less than 20 games into the season. There’s the two extra wins that would have had the team back to .500 yesterday at 9-9 if two losses were two wins.
As we know, the little things do matter.
