Going Deep with The Nats

All signs point to a sudden truce between the MASN owners after the lawsuits came to a conclusion in favor of the Washington Nationals. While neither side was happy with the final numbers — they seemed to meet in the middle based on the RSDC valuations. But is there any other reason that John Angelos, the CEO of MASN, wanted to settle quickly this time? His baseball team has been rumored to be for sale — which he denied — but what about selling MASN to a third party?

Get ready for four-days of top prospect baseball when all teams will showcase top prospect games with the inaugural SPRING BREAKOUT held from March 14-17 at Grapefruit and Cactus league stadiums. The Washington Nationals and New York Mets Spring Breakout game will be played on March 15 in a Friday afternoon showcase game at 3:10 PM EDT that is part of a doubleheader with a regular big league game.

The “Spring Breakout” game, which is a new concept this year, fields rosters of team’s future stars for a showcase in the middle of the Spring Training schedule. Teams are paired against nearby teams in the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues, and the Nats prospects will travel to face the Mets at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie.

The Washington Nationals have made three acquisitions with reliever Dylan Floro, former top prospect, Nick Senzel, and a Rule-5 pick of Nasim Nuñez. Floro and Nuñez’s roles were easily defined quickly — but there was much doubt on the 28 year old infielder/outfielder who was non-tendered by the Reds … until he spoke to the media yesterday.

Most of these MLB free agents are already millionaires many times over. Those who invested their money properly and have good financial planning will not have to worry about putting food on their table — ever. Of course some free agents need the work, and others have the strategy of knowing they are in high demand and believe the economics of scarcity will drive up their price — based simply on supply and demand in a finite market of limited assets. These assets are so limited that their wealthy buyers have blurred lines of the underlying auction as if they are bidding on one of Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings which would make Shohei Ohtani the Mona Lisa.

When a general manager speaks about not blocking prospects versus a manager’s desire for competition for roster spots, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Mike Rizzo, the Washington Nationals’ President of Baseball Operations, gave several interviews at the Winter Meetings earlier this week in Nashville, and a key point is that he was not going to make a free agent acquisition that would block a top prospect. But he has been clear in the past that he has no problem promoting prospects, even as teenagers, if they prove to be ready which would give his manager a better roster without regard to service time manipulation that many teams partake in.