- 2 days ago
It's been one year since Davey Martinez said the Nats' pitfalls were never on coaching. 75 games into 2026, it seems like it actually was in fact, on coaching.
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00:00Charlie Slows on the call of Nats Baseball.
00:03The Nationals, 2 over .500 with a chance to get to 38-35.
00:07They'd be 3 over for the first time since 2019 if they can pull it off today
00:11with the Kansas City Royals in town.
00:14I've got your postgame tonight on the Nationals radio network.
00:17So it's June 15th.
00:20If you go back to 2025, one year ago yesterday on June 14th, last season,
00:26Davey Martinez said one of the most memorable and notorious lines
00:32that he would ever utter.
00:33There were great lines, too, like bumpy roads, beautiful places,
00:37and some of the other things.
00:38You guys cured my heart after the World Series championship.
00:42But maybe his biggest press conference foible and the thing that he said
00:46that annoyed me the most in real time, and we crushed him for it thereafter.
00:50And it annoyed the players, too.
00:52Was it's never on the coaches.
00:54This was one year ago yesterday.
00:57When you look at the offense as a whole,
00:58I know you guys have a pretty upset you wanted to this month.
01:01For you, how much of that is on the players, on the coaching?
01:05It's never on coaching.
01:07Never on coaching.
01:09Coaches work their asses off every single day.
01:11We're not going to finger-point here and say it's coaches.
01:14It's never on the coaches.
01:16They work hard.
01:18The message is clear.
01:21All the work is done prior.
01:24So, sometimes, you know, they've got to go out there and they've got to play the game.
01:26It's always been about the players.
01:29Always.
01:29You know, I played this game a long time.
01:31Never once have I blamed the coach for anything.
01:34I mean, I worked, you know, we worked our asses off to get better.
01:37They gave us information, and we used it.
01:40You know, so these guys understand what the game is.
01:43Man, these coaches, I never had such a group of coaches that worked as hard as they do.
01:47But, I mean, they're here freaking divisively.
01:49They go over everything.
01:50They sit with players every day.
01:52You know, these coaches, you know, they work their asses off.
01:58That comment last year was on the heels of what was a seventh consecutive loss.
02:03That losing streak would turn into 11 in a row
02:06and would result eventually in the firing of Davey Martinez and Mike Rizzo
02:11not long before the Major League Baseball draft, which Mike DiBartolo ran.
02:15And, by the way, that draft class he put together looks ridiculous.
02:18I mean, he's still in their front office, didn't get a sniff elsewhere as a GM.
02:21But if that's his resume, that's a pretty nice resume to start sending around the team.
02:25Yes, indeed.
02:26Look what I did here in this spot that's been pretty devoid of this
02:29over the last handful of years.
02:30That having been said, at this point, 72 games in last year, they were 30-42,
02:35so they are seven games better right now than they were then.
02:39And Davey Martinez in talking about it's never on the coaches.
02:43I understand what he was trying to say, by the way,
02:45because it's actually a philosophy that I believe in,
02:47which is in baseball specifically, but in a lot of sports,
02:50I am way more inclined to put the blame or the praise on the players than the coaches.
02:57You and I talked about it at the time.
02:58Hitting coaches, pitching coaches, they're going to ID some things in video.
03:02They're going to give you a pointer.
03:03They're going to tell you, hey, look what you're doing.
03:04You're dropping your elbow here.
03:06You're doing this.
03:06Let's make sure that your release point's a little bit off.
03:09Let's get it back to where it needs to be.
03:11But by and large, players are helping players in the clubhouse.
03:13You have veterans like a Scherzer or now a Foster Griffin or whatever.
03:16They're going to give you some pointers as well.
03:18Players are, most of the time, going to sink or swim with or without coaching.
03:24Having said that, that comment was so terrible because he clearly was super defensive,
03:29and he was doing this mama bear bit with his coaching staff,
03:32which was largely his buddies, if you remember.
03:35So this was my big complaint with this year's football team, where it's disastrous.
03:42I mean, last year, what did they lose?
03:4311 straight games, 12 straight, whatever it was,
03:45and it took James Wood hitting a walk-off against the dumb White Sox to finally break it.
03:49I mean, they were awful.
03:50They were getting bludgeoned every night, and no one was interested in a change.
03:53You wouldn't even switch the bench coach with the third base coach just to try something different,
03:57just to do anything different at any time.
04:00It was, nope, going 1-0 today.
04:01And then when they finally fired Davey and asked Miguel Cairo what he wanted to do,
04:05it was go 1-0 today.
04:06It was the same catchphrases with, you know, just repackaged.
04:09I mean, it was just beyond embarrassing.
04:11His coaching staff was always, though, his guys.
04:15And these are all good baseball guys who've been around.
04:17They were, but it was a fairly dated, antiquated philosophy at times.
04:22Like, I don't think Jim Hickey is a bad pitching coach.
04:25He was actually a really good one at one point in time in Tampa Bay.
04:28What helped them is that they had a guy like Sean Doolittle,
04:31who was more new school and analytical and data-driven, to help Jim Hickey out.
04:35But he was not going to solve the dilemma.
04:37That was a Davey guy from their time together with the Rays.
04:40You mentioned Cairo was a longtime buddy of his.
04:42That was kind of always the way that it went.
04:44Darnell Coles, their hitting coach last year, was, with this same lineup,
04:48completely unsuccessful at getting them to have any kind of approach or a plan.
04:53So what a lot of people are going to do, I think,
04:55is say that the coaches were not good or the coaches were bad.
04:59And I stopped short of doing that.
05:00A guy like Darnell Coles is in Atlanta right now,
05:02where the Braves are the best team in the National League,
05:05and for my money, the best team in baseball, and they're awesome offensively.
05:08And yes, Darnell Coles is not the hitting coach.
05:10He's the assistant hitting coach.
05:12But it's not like he gets in there and then says to do the wrong thing
05:15and everyone becomes bad at hitting.
05:16My problem with last year, and what this season has been a referendum on,
05:20is the philosophies of the organization, really.
05:23And that comes from coaching.
05:24That is a Davey thing.
05:25That's a coaching staff thing.
05:26It could be above them to some extent as well.
05:29But the overall paradigm as a hitter, what matters, what doesn't,
05:34what do we care about, what don't we, do we care about lifting the baseball?
05:38Is that a lifestyle?
05:39Is that something that we're living every single day at spring training?
05:42Are we putting pinatas in the batting cage to try to get them to compete
05:47and think about hitting the pinata with the baseball?
05:50Are we doing those types of things?
05:52Or when you ask a coach, Darnell Coles or somebody else about it,
05:55do they think that that's newfangled BS?
05:58Do they think that that's some kind of wacky Western medicine where it's all
06:03wild and unserious?
06:05Those are the types of things that I would want to know.
06:07I don't think they had terrible coaches.
06:09But I think between the philosophies, some of the outdated ways that they
06:14practiced or didn't, hitting, pitching, what have you,
06:17and specifically on the hitting side, I think this entire year has been a
06:20referendum on that group.
06:21Yeah, to me, I don't know any other way to determine it,
06:23to look at the same outcome.
06:24Because again, it's not as if they have 15 new players.
06:26The new guys are the drawbeat vivaces of the world.
06:29I mean, I guess, you know, Curtis Mead's here too,
06:32but for the most part, it's the same core group doing the same stuff,
06:35and the numbers are beyond stark.
06:37As a team, as a team, now it's not exactly apples to apples,
06:41it's 96 games in the first half versus the ongoing total of the first half this
06:45year, but 45 points of team OPS.
06:48Plus, the same batting average, they're actually a decent batting average team
06:50last year, right in the middle of the 240s.
06:52But the power numbers, they have as many home runs now as they did in 96 games
06:57of the first half last year as a team.
07:00There is a team philosophy, kind of to your point, team execution.
07:03To me, it's beyond, yeah, the philosophies, it's what happens when a guy gets
07:07picked off?
07:07What happens when a guy doesn't run the ball out for the millionth time?
07:11For Davey, it was nothing.
07:13No one did anything.
07:14And it was infuriating.
07:16Great chance to set an example for a team that's going to lose 90-plus games.
07:20Here, it doesn't seem to happen repeat.
07:21Remember, C.J. Abrams had that embarrassing play, I think it was in Chicago,
07:25where he drilled the ball off the wall and ended up getting thrown out because
07:28he didn't run.
07:28It was an opening day?
07:29It was an opening day.
07:30And you've seen corrections there, right?
07:33Where guys actually aren't just going through the motions in a lot of cases.
07:36And it's not just a week where they're good, it's a sustained thing.
07:39It's not career years from everybody.
07:41It's not as if Daylon Lyle's doing what he did at the end of last season, right?
07:44He's fine.
07:45He's solid.
07:45He's been really good.
07:46It's not as if Dylan Cruz has all of a sudden figured out the roadmap and is hitting 990.
07:49He's still sub-200 at this point.
07:51It's a bunch of the same guys holding over, but whether it's data, whether it's approach,
07:58whether it's what they're saying is getting through, I don't know what I don't know
08:01because we're not there every day, every second.
08:03But it seems they're more prepared.
08:04They're willing to adjust.
08:05The plans are better.
08:06And the results are night and day compared to last year.
08:09All I can tell you is what players have told me.
08:12They are way better prepared.
08:13The preparation is enhanced.
08:15The amount of information they are given is extensive.
08:19It is greater than.
08:20It is more.
08:21The packet is larger.
08:23They just have a better idea of the mission.
08:26They have a—I keep using the word plan.
08:28They actually have a plan of attack when they get into the batter's box.
08:33It's not just a go up, read, react, which is what some teams do.
08:36There are bad teams in baseball that do it that way all the time.
08:39This was one of them for an extended period of time.
08:42But if you look at it, James Wood, way better right now than a year ago.
08:45C.J. Abrams, better significantly than a year ago.
08:48Curtis Mead is new and has been a nice addition, 810 OPS.
08:52That's good.
08:53But Luis Garcia has an OPS plus.
08:55He's 8% better than league average at 108 despite a slow start.
08:58Last year, he was 4% below league average.
09:01He has been significantly better.
09:03His OPS has jumped from 700 to 748, almost 50 points of growth for him.
09:09Dalen Lyle is the one guy, I'd say, who had a better year last year than he has had so
09:14far this year.
09:15But he's proven to be very solid.
09:16The enhancements of Jacob Young, massive.
09:19K.Bert Ruiz, unbelievable.
09:21I mean, K.Bert Ruiz could be an all-star catcher.
09:23He won't be because we can't even get James Wood and C.J. Abrams to the all-star game.
09:27But K.Bert Ruiz has an OPS over 800.
09:30I would have bet every penny I have, if you gave me 1,000 to 1 odds and said put
09:36$100 down on K.Bert Ruiz,
09:37having an OPS over 100 on June 15th, I wouldn't have done that.
09:41It's amazing what's happened with him.
09:44Dylan Cruz has only had 80 at-bats, so I'm not judging him just yet compared to a year ago.
09:49But up and down the order, anybody that has carried over almost to a person,
09:54they have gotten more out of than the last group.
09:56And when you have conversations, like we did at spring training with guys like Cole Henry,
10:00who weren't allowed to use true media by themselves last year,
10:04a website that you and I can use to look up analytics,
10:07they weren't allowed to use it by themselves.
10:09Now they're just given a password and information and told to go hunt around,
10:13and they're educated on how to find things out and what to be looking for,
10:16and every pitcher knows what the magic numbers are in their vertical break
10:20and what you're looking for in your horizontal movement.
10:22And if it's below this number, you're going to get rocked.
10:25And if it's above this number, your batting average is 117.
10:27They all just walk around with this data and this information.
10:30And they're buying in because there are former players like Sean Doolittle as conduits
10:35that are there to say, hey, this isn't just some nerd.
10:38Now, this wouldn't work everywhere with every player.
10:40A guy like Jason Wirth would want nothing to do with a lot of this stuff.
10:43The guys that came up in a different era wouldn't want it.
10:44That's fine.
10:45And guess what?
10:46They're not in the clubhouse anymore.
10:47And Jason Wirth's not in any clubhouse at this point.
10:49I'm not trying to knock Jason Wirth.
10:51I'm just saying, like, the game is changing.
10:53The era is different.
10:54It is new.
10:55They have these meetings every six weeks where the manager, Uterra,
10:58and hitting your pitching coach, depending on what you do on the team,
11:01and a strength coach and a nutrition coach and an assistant GM
11:05and then an R&D numbers nerd, and all these people sit in there
11:07and they go over your attack for the next six weeks
11:11and what they expect from you and how you did and what you did
11:13and what you didn't do.
11:14This is all normal, easy stuff in other workplaces that they're using in Washington
11:20and it is working, which isn't even to speak to some of the technology
11:24that they've invested in, like the Traject machines.
11:27I talked to Yohani Morales a couple weekends ago,
11:30who's in AAA right now.
11:32For those of you that don't know, he was drafted by the previous regime,
11:3540th overall at the University of Miami,
11:37and Yohani Morales is having an unbelievable season in the minors,
11:40has completely broken out with this group.
11:43He's hitting .340 with 1,000 OPS.
11:45He's got 15 home runs at AAA.
11:47Frankly, should have been in the big leagues a couple weeks ago,
11:49and they're kind of seemingly waiting for him to cool off at this point
11:52so they don't have to call him up or whatever.
11:54I don't know what's going on with him, but the bottom line is
11:57he's having this great year,
11:58and I talk to him on my prospect show,
12:00and I'm like, what is going on?
12:02And he singles out this Traject machine that they went and got
12:05because he says I take ABs before every game against every pitcher.
12:08And the way the technology works is they take Danny Ruye throws
12:1278 miles an hour, and here's his horizontal movement.
12:15Very little.
12:15Here's his vertical movement.
12:16So they program the pitches,
12:18and you get to take the actual at-bat off of Danny Ruye before the game.
12:21You program the pitches, the movement, the velocity.
12:24And Ioani Morales is going, this is an answer key for me.
12:27For some guys, it works that easily.
12:29It's apples to apples.
12:31It's just like, now I see it.
12:32Now I can go hit it.
12:33And it's a big factor, I think.
12:35They have one at Nats Park.
12:36They didn't last year.
12:37They have one at Rochester.
12:38They didn't last year.
12:39They have one at West Palm.
12:40They didn't last year.
12:41They went from zero to three.
12:42Almost every team in baseball had one but them.
12:44And Taboni came in and said, we need this.
12:47Some stuff's expensive.
12:48Some stuff, you're just...
12:49Remember those baseballs they were using,
12:51the spin access balls?
12:52They were just using a Sharpie to draw little images
12:54so that Cade Cavalli, every time he threw a ball,
12:57could see if he threw it correctly or not
12:58based on what it looked like.
12:59Yeah, where the dot was or where the shaded was.
13:02That costs zero money.
13:03That's a baseball and a Sharpie.
13:04And some time for somebody to go through
13:06and draw on the baseballs.
13:08They'd never done that before.
13:09Cavalli thought it was the coolest thing in the world
13:10and says it helped him.
13:11Why not do stuff like that?
13:13Totally.
13:13Again, to me, it is an absolutely referendum
13:15on the old way of doing things.
13:17And it's not just, again, the baseball guy.
13:20These are...
13:20I don't doubt that Darnell Coles was sitting there
13:22in the cage with guys doing flip after flip
13:24after flip after flip and working on stuff.
13:26It's a...
13:27The complacency of that group
13:29is what drove me the craziest.
13:31I like David Martinez's purse.
13:32It was nothing but great to us.
13:34To you and me.
13:34He was an awesome guy.
13:35And he led this franchise
13:36when they were veteran-laden.
13:38Was the perfect skipper for that group.
13:40When it's development time
13:42and guys ain't developing,
13:45please, where's my shake-up?
13:46Where's my something?
13:47Where's my flip a table?
13:49Where's my fiery speech?
13:51Whatever you want to do.
13:52And I know what he was trying to say,
13:54but to me, that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
13:56And since then,
13:57you see the proof here is in the pudding.
13:59A year ago yesterday,
14:00Davey Martinez says it's never on the coaches.
14:03Took issue with the questioning
14:05after a seventh straight loss of his staff
14:07and their message is not getting through
14:09to these players that are now flourishing
14:11in over 500 this year.
14:13Do you view this season
14:14as a referendum on Martinez
14:16and last year's staff?
14:17G&D on the fence.
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