- 22 hours ago
Paul Toboni joins The Sports Junkies to break down the latest Washington Nationals news.
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00:00Say good morning to Paul Toboni, President of Baseball Operations for your Washington Nationals.
00:06Paul, thank you for being flexible with your scheduling.
00:09You're supposed to be on yesterday. We had some technical snafus, so thank you.
00:13We appreciate you showing up today.
00:14Paul, I told the boys this morning that it was meant to be that we had the technical difficulties yesterday
00:20because if you were on yesterday, it would have been coming on after a loss.
00:24But we have you on today after a huge win, 15-2. It was meant to be.
00:28Yeah, nice. We might have been doing some behind-the-scenes work there to maybe sabotage you guys
00:34so I can come on a day later after this good win.
00:36Right, right.
00:37Yeah, four home runs, including one from C.J. Abrams. He's just having a fantastic year.
00:42I know this is more like a long-term thing, but when do you think about giving him a big,
00:47fat contract?
00:49Yeah. I mean, it's on our mind with really a number of our players.
00:56It'll always be, to be honest.
00:58We think about it pretty much like the majority of the fan base does, which is like, hey, we want
01:06to be good for a long time.
01:08And then part of that is doing what you can to see if there's going to be overlap between the
01:13players that you have on your team
01:15and kind of your long-term strategy.
01:17So, yeah, that's a scenario.
01:21And more than anything, I think we've just been more than happy with how C.J.'s played, how he's handled
01:27himself, all those things.
01:29His swing, I think just having seen him getting back all the way to high school,
01:33his swing right now and his play discipline I think is in a spot that at least I have never
01:39seen.
01:39And I mean that in a really good way.
01:41So, Paul, 37 games, any real explanation as to the struggles at home?
01:48Nats are 5-13 at Nats Park, 12-7 on the road, been a really good road team.
01:54Is that just a function of a lot of really good opponents came into Nats Park in the first few
01:59weeks of the season?
02:00What do you think is behind that?
02:02Yeah, I don't really know, to be honest.
02:04I think part of it is what you just said.
02:07I think part of it is just like it's still a really small sample of games.
02:10You know what I mean?
02:11And I think, you know, we've had this, I was saying it yesterday,
02:13we've had these stretches of three, four, five games where we've played really well.
02:19I mean, thinking about that Brewer series the first time around and, you know,
02:24the last couple of games, the White Sox series.
02:26And I just think that so much of what we need to be better at is just being consistent
02:32because you see these flashes of some really good play.
02:34And then if I'm being completely candid, right, we take a step back
02:37and it gets a little bit sloppy.
02:38So, you know, we've just got to be more consistent day to day.
02:43So talk about last night pounding out the 14 hits.
02:48I think there were, I think you guys had six guys, maybe seven with multiple hits.
02:54James had a couple, CJ, Brady, he hit a bomb.
02:57I mean, you guys were just on fire last night.
02:58And you faced a pretty good pitcher.
03:00I mean, Ober's, he's good.
03:02And then you had Myles Michaelis, who obviously had struggled for most of his starts,
03:06but he was good last night.
03:08I mean, last night was just one of those nights where everything went right,
03:11pounding out the 15 runs.
03:13Yeah, for sure.
03:14I think, yeah, that was good to see out of the offense.
03:18Obviously, the offense was really good early.
03:21And then it went, when I say early, early in the season.
03:26And then, not that it got quiet, but it just, the offense wasn't performing just like it
03:32was the first 15 games of the year, whatever it was.
03:34And so to see them do that last night, that was great.
03:37And then Myles, yeah, you know, I think we saw it against the Giants.
03:41When was that?
03:42Three starts ago.
03:43We saw it last night.
03:45You know, when he's commanding those three different types of fastballs,
03:49the different parts of the plate, and, you know, mixing in the curveball and the change
03:53and everything and moving it in and out and up and down, he can be a pretty tough at-bat.
03:57So that was great to see out of him.
03:59And then Mitch came in and threw great as well, as well as Zach.
04:03But Mitch, you know, him coming in and providing, I think it was two and two-thirds at like 27
04:08pitches
04:09or something, that was really good stuff.
04:11So I saw you recently were asked about kind of a long-term vision about the pitching staff,
04:17and I wanted you to elaborate on that.
04:18You basically preached patience and saying it might take a year, 18 months.
04:25Can you kind of fill us in on the long-term vision to develop, you know, an elite pitching staff,
04:30which you need to win a championship?
04:33Yeah, you know, I think it's pretty straightforward.
04:36I think if you take a step back, right, like there are two ways to do it, right?
04:40You can either just outspend the competition, right, go into free agency
04:45and pay a bunch of guys $30 million a year, right?
04:49Or you can basically be better than the competition at acquiring and developing talent, right?
04:57And I think you're probably seeing it with some teams around the league, you know,
05:02whether it's the Mariners, right?
05:04And you think about, like, Logan Gilbert and Brian Wu and all those guys.
05:08You think about the Pirates, right, and Skeens and Majinsky and Ashcraft and those guys.
05:16That didn't happen overnight, you know what I mean?
05:18And so it does take some time to, like I said, acquire and develop these guys.
05:23And that doesn't mean that we're just going to, you know, sit back and wait for years for it to
05:29happen.
05:29But the reality is, is usually these things take time.
05:32And no matter how much we want it to happen quickly,
05:36I really truly believe that playing the long game in this aspect is a competitive advantage
05:42because teams feel so much pressure to push the chips in early.
05:45They do it before a real strong foundation is set from a pitching standpoint.
05:49Talking to Paul Ciboni, president of baseball operations of the Washington Nationals.
05:53Now, the first time we met you was when you had the press conference
05:56and you were there with Lerner.
05:59And there was talk about the willingness to spend money and free agency.
06:06Is that something we will see down the line?
06:09Yeah.
06:10To what extent?
06:11Like, you know, that's TBD.
06:14And I think they would say the same, right?
06:17We're going to play it year by year.
06:18But what I said that day, like, you know, continues to be true, which is like, man,
06:23if I didn't think that we could build a world-class organization here,
06:27I probably would have been happy in Boston and hanging there now and doing my thing over there.
06:34And so, you know, like I said, we're all here for a reason.
06:37And I think we got some bright days ahead of us for the Nationals.
06:44So, Paul, I'm just going to ask you, you made that point about, you know,
06:47trying to develop players and taking that strategy as opposed to just going out
06:51and spending a bunch of money.
06:53It'd be nice to have both, but I know it's out of your hands to do that.
06:58But just in terms of the league in general, I just want to kind of get your take.
07:02It seems very top-heavy this year.
07:05There's only 10 teams with winning records.
07:07And, in fact, the entire American League Central and American League West,
07:10not one team out of the 10 has a winning record.
07:13All 10 have at least, you know, the best records are 500.
07:18And then you've got, you know, teams like the Braves and the Yankees and the Rays
07:22and the Dodgers and the Cubs that are kind of running away with their divisions.
07:26But is there something different this year that you're seeing league-wide,
07:31or is there just a lot more parity, in your opinion,
07:34for only having 10 teams with winning records?
07:38Yeah, so I think part of it is, you know,
07:42some of the teams that might have been bringing up the back in past years
07:46have just been better about, you know, bringing in,
07:50whether it's different front office personnel or coaches or whatever it might be,
07:53just to realize the talent that they have within their walls.
07:57But I think the other part of it is just like this is part of the beauty of baseball.
08:02You know what I mean?
08:02It's a little bit different than the NBA, right,
08:05where at the start of the season I think you can say, like, hey, in the NBA,
08:09these five teams are probably going to be in it, like, in the last couple weeks.
08:13And these five teams, like, I'm not sure they're going to really have any shot.
08:17You know what I mean?
08:18And baseball is a little bit different where on any given night, you know,
08:22any team can win.
08:22So I think it's been really good.
08:26You know, will it stay that way over time?
08:30Who knows?
08:31But for the time being, like, yeah, looking in the AL West and AL Central and seeing that, yeah,
08:38you got the A's leading the West.
08:41And in the Central, there's a lot of parity as well.
08:44I think it's a good thing for baseball.
08:46Paul, did you like Blake Butera's bluntness after the loss to the Brewers?
08:50I think it was four or five days ago where he said in the postgame, quote,
08:54we can't lead the league in errors and expect to win.
08:57And he wanted more emphasis on defense going forward.
09:01Did you like that approach by your manager?
09:03I did, yeah.
09:04I was probably more PC when I was on with you guys.
09:08But, yeah, I mean, we got to be better.
09:10And, you know, I think what Blake is really good at is, you know,
09:16communicating to the fan base.
09:19But then, of course, the players.
09:20Like, hey, it's not for a lack of trying.
09:22These guys, you know, when I say these guys, the players acknowledge we need to be better there.
09:26And they want to be better, right?
09:27Now it's simply about going out and doing it.
09:29And I think Blake talked about it, too.
09:32We adjusted some of our pregame routines here in the last few days.
09:35So we're hoping that that shows up here in the near future as well.
09:39So, I'm sorry, we always kind of ask you about Dylan Cruz and how he's doing.
09:44I was just going to ask you about Eli Willits, who, you know, he's very young.
09:49He's probably minimum three years away from the bigs.
09:52But he's putting up some pretty good numbers at, I think he's at Fredericksburg, Class A, correct?
09:58Fredericksburg?
09:59He is, yeah.
10:00Yeah, yeah.
10:00So what have you noticed with Eli?
10:02I think he's played about 30 games.
10:03I think he's hitting about 285.
10:05Yeah, he's been awesome.
10:08And he started off a little bit slow, too.
10:10So if you look at just over the course of the last couple weeks, he's been really, really good.
10:15And Eli, I mean, if you're a big baseball fan and you're in the DMV, like, it's worth going out
10:22there and seeing not just Eli, but that whole team.
10:26But Eli specifically, like, he just has such an advanced feel for the game.
10:30I mean, you have to remind yourself watching him.
10:34So he was a year young when the Nationals drafted him.
10:37And so he, I mean, he could be, you know, a senior in high school right now at whatever, Georgetown
10:43Prep or DeMatha or wherever, right now.
10:46You know, and he's going out there and he's facing these guys that are, you know, much older than him,
10:52throwing hard, all these things.
10:54And it's just, it's not just his at-bats that are really competitive, but his instincts for the game, his
10:59instincts on the base pass and in the field, all that.
11:02His dad was a major leaguer.
11:03He grew up around it.
11:05And it's really easy to see when you watch him play.
11:08All right.
11:08So day game today, right?
11:10Give us sort of your routine here after you hang up.
11:14What's kind of the deal for you leading up to the game?
11:17Yeah, I got a couple meetings.
11:20So I'm actually not at Nationals Park yet, but I'll be on my way in.
11:24I got a couple meetings and then, you know, we'll talk through like pregame strategy from a pitching standpoint.
11:31We have like a hitting advance meeting that we'll do and talk about game planning from a hitting standpoint.
11:38And then I will lock in on the game and go from there.
11:42Are you like super like involved in that?
11:44Like a lot of your input, are you just kind of asking the coaches and they explain to you?
11:48How does that work?
11:49How's that dynamic?
11:51No, they, the coaches run it.
11:53So, yeah, I'm very clear that like, man, this is their show.
11:58You know what I mean?
11:59At the same time, if I can support in some way, you know, I obviously will.
12:05And there are some, you know, there are some times too where they're like, hey, there's overlap between like how
12:15we're going to use the pen in roster decisions and stuff like that.
12:18So, providing extra context that might not be front of mind for coaches because they're just trying to, you know,
12:24win every day as they should be, right?
12:27Being able to take a, you know, a little bit more of a zoomed out view and help provide context,
12:31I think, helps in certain spots.
12:33So, really, I'm there to support them, challenge them when necessary, but we're all obviously in this together and all
12:41we want is for the Nets to win.
12:43So, that's the goal of those meetings and they've been going great so far.
12:47Paul, thanks as always for the time again.
12:49Thanks for being flexible with your schedule and appearing today instead of yesterday.
12:53We'll talk to you again next Wednesday.
12:55Thank you, bud.
12:56Appreciate it.
12:56Good luck today, bud.
12:57Yeah, sounds good.
12:58Appreciate it, guys.
12:59Talk to you soon.
12:59All right.
13:00That's Paul Tabone, president of Baseball Ops for your Washington Nationals.
13:05Coming up next, we'll talk Wizards with Josh Robbins from The Athletic.
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