- 1 day ago
Danny poses a good question: Should the Nationals care about the fan feelings to determine what they do at the deadline?
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00:00my question ultimately for for this phase of what the Nats are doing I know Taboni and company when
00:06he first got here said I you know I'm not responsible and this is not a quote but just
00:10sort of paraphrasing I didn't do the last six plus years to you guys that wasn't me I'm here
00:15because they didn't go well we've got a plan we're going to ask people to be patient could Nats fans
00:21a deal with sort of moving to the future every call we get is you telling me we're going to
00:25trade somebody that's good it's another trade bye and they're going to get so mad if they were to
00:30move on from someone regardless of the hall people were furious about the Mackenzie Gore trade furious
00:34about the Ferrer trade and here's this team punching away above expectations so because any move is
00:40going to be seen as same old same old even though it's not it's a different brain trust doing it
00:45could be really really smart it could be incredibly prudent where you sell high on someone that you
00:49don't really have as part of your long-term plan should they be taking fan feeling fan pulse into
00:57account at all no absolutely not not for me I think the general answer to this with a front office
01:06is
01:06absolutely not in general with you fans want the sugar high of the donut that is competing for another
01:17month they really like foster griffin so they want to see him pitch some more they don't want to give
01:23up the player fans wouldn't have traded soto it was a good thing that they did right fans would have
01:29paid anthony rendon in the end thank god that they didn't fans wouldn't have traded Mackenzie Gore
01:34that's going to be a gigantic win for them in the long haul so no they should not this is
01:40where
01:40paul taboni gets paid to put on his big boy president of baseball ops pants and to be smarter than
01:46everybody else and he's got to do what's right for the organization the other thing is fans have
01:52been screwed over for years in a lot of ways like just from a 10 000 foot view in terms
01:57of you're
01:58paying a lot of money for beer you're paying a lot of money for tickets you're paying a lot of
02:01money
02:01and being inconvenienced for parking or metro or whatever and they're fielding a minor league team
02:06for a few seasons and they weren't trying to win and they don't spend enough money and like all of
02:11these things that's not paul taboni's problem right that's not even this ownership group's problem
02:16in 2026 right now this second like reinvested in whatever is going to be into the future what they
02:23did in the past is in the past now i don't mean the ownership group as much as the organization
02:27and so if i'm paul taboni and i'm going to ownership and i want to buy okay fine if i
02:32want to sell that's
02:33good too but it's going to have nothing to do with the fact that fans are restless and that you
02:36know
02:37wolves are at the doors and it's it's not going to be a we can't trade foster griffin because it's
02:41going to be the most recent guy that got dealt that people fell in love with the the ones before
02:47this had nothing to do with me i i can't wear that that's not my cross to bear sure and
02:52generally
02:52again i i would agree 100 but i think this is kind of a special situation where and again i'm
02:59not
02:59advocating for it i'm bringing it up because because i've heard from enough people like the the
03:02nats fans in my neighborhood that have given up their season tickets that now do partial uh partial
03:06i'm sure that's a word uh a partial plan here and there or you know they go to fewer games
03:11than
03:11they charge for their partial it's it's less expensive than you think because it doesn't
03:14exist there's no such thing as a partial plan yeah uh the there's do me a favor call over to
03:20the
03:20nats ticket office ticket office and just see what kind of partial plans they have what's available
03:26for the rest of the way see what they say record the convo so we can play it right the
03:29partial plan
03:30i'm sure the good thing i talked for job uh we're the the vibe we hear it on the phone
03:35anytime we
03:35bring up anything about the trade deadline buy sell and different if they lose a couple games
03:39in a row win a couple games after that philly series or after the yankee series we're all kind
03:42of down and the idea of trading away anybody right now is met with so much more vitriol than it
03:50would
03:50have been two years ago three years ago five years ago because of all the water under this bridge
03:53and i guess my point is i'm just offering the case that's out there because of what's happened and
03:58because there is a reasonable case to be made for not trading should that be kind of the needle
04:03that maybe is considered at the table right where you're going we could improve the ball club slightly
04:09but there's just as good of a case maybe not to do it again if you're blown away by an
04:12offer you
04:12just take the offer and don't worry about what the dude in section 214 says but if it's a 50
04:1750 down
04:18the middle there is some room in this discussion for me for how furious the fans are they're just
04:25starting to come back and have a little bit of fun at the ballpark again for the first time
04:28since the world series in 2019 again in general of course the the gm has to do the best thing
04:34for
04:34the ball club period full stop i don't care what any any fan says but this is a little bit
04:39different
04:39i guess is all i'm saying so the tie the 50 50 element of what you're saying i'll hear that
04:45one
04:45like that is interesting and compelling to me that you're saying somewhere on this table with 15 bowls
04:53and plates of food there's enough space to just put a small plate somewhere that is how the fans
04:58are going to feel i'm just saying it can't be a factor if you want to put it on it
05:04can't be the
05:04can't be the overriding factor of course and i do bring it up whenever we have conversations but
05:08remember what uh taboni told jesse docherty of notice n-o-t-u-s i think is the new publication
05:16that
05:16he writes for he asked him in his first piece column about taboni in the new era of the nationals
05:22going back a couple months ago he's like how much thought have you given to what fans have been
05:27through since 2019 and how like awful this has been for this fan base and taboni said i probably
05:33shouldn't say this but very little i'm paraphrasing but his point was like next to none that will only
05:40cloud and complicate my job he's got to have a really clear vision to do what's right this is
05:46analogous to other areas of life where decisions are very difficult and feelings are going to be
05:54hurt and you know relationships are going to be probably have to be mended down the road or whatever
06:02but you have to do what's right you're paid to build a champion there's one way to do this in
06:06his
06:06mind and and he's got a plan to do it you also answered the question i think with something else
06:12you
06:12said remember how angry gnats fans were about the soto trade yeah how do they how do they feel
06:19about cj abrams and james wood now right totally the amount of people that say god that trade saved
06:25our bacon i remember i'm not this is not to pat myself on the back at all i promise but
06:30i remember
06:31basically being um the john snow meme like the day after that trade in town where i was like
06:37you guys don't understand how good of a return this is for a guy that was never going to sign
06:42nobody wanted to hear that you could just have juan soto being a great player on an awful team for
06:46a couple more years and they're going to lose a lot of games and they're going to be in a
06:50really
06:50bad spot all people could could think about is this ownership group didn't sign juan soto and i
06:56understand the annoyance of the the lifetime achievement award of rendon and harper and soto and
07:01the list goes on and on and on but thank god for that trade and people now realize that i
07:07think
07:07they're going to feel the same way to some extent it's not the exact same return that return will never
07:11happen again by the way but like the mckenzie gore deal already looks like a massive win for them
07:15not all wins right now the luis perrales deal for jake bennett it's very early but that has not gone
07:21well bennett's dealing is one of the better pitchers in baseball since he got called up by the red sox
07:25luis perrales has had a pretty disappointing year frankly in triple a with the nationals that was a
07:30pitcher for pitcher deal where they gave up the more you know uh lower ceiling kind of pitcher for the
07:38the stuffy thrower where they wanted the velocity kind of cut from their cloth of what they like
07:43analytically and so far it has not worked well so i'm not sitting here just defending everything that
07:47they've done but i am saying most of the time the really loud angry people if you give it time
07:55and
07:55it works out they'll come around that's fans got excited this year why because they're winning
08:00because they're performing so in the short term will people be livid yes will fewer people go to
08:05games the rest of this season definitely will we get a lot of angry calls yep will some people
08:09check out for the next several months in spring training next year no doubt but if they're right
08:14and they win and they're good they'll be back it gets forgiven if you build it they will come
08:19they'll be back and that's what i would say in meetings with the learners or in meetings with
08:23uh you know sinaraja or the business people out trust me we're going to build a winner when we're
08:30winning asses will be in seats two sections of tarps off crew are going to be loud you guys will
08:35be having fun in the meantime let me do my thing if i was to boney i agree so the
08:41and also the other
08:43mitigating factor is if it somehow comes out because you could see towards the end with rizzo and company
08:47that he would one way or the other whether it was him saying it or an intermediary saying it a
08:52report
08:52would come out it's like yeah i would have spent on that i wanted christian walker couldn't get him
08:57gotta ask the guys upstairs if it comes out that way that you know we're we're not spending or or
09:04whatever that's another factor to it too to how irritated fans might get but if it's now i mean
09:09again think of think of what's happened over the last handful of months rizzo's on on television
09:13going yeah we tried to get those machines we weren't allowed to but this group this group was
09:17kind of you know telling you that or kind of giving away the the sauce or the or the uh
09:22the secret
09:22there um that they believed in them enough to be able to allow them to do what they wanted to
09:27do
09:27presumably because they're going to save them money at other levels right in other ways that
09:31they would be profitable so the budget's the budget and you're we're just going to reallocate it yes
09:35we'll do the traject machine but no we're not going to do i don't know whatever line item rizzo and
09:40company had pitcher yeah yeah starting pitcher or anything that would help the ball club so again
09:45that part of the other thing is and i don't know the answer to this right because i know for
09:48a fact
09:49they wanted those one of the guys that worked under rizzo who was an assistant gm was a guy named
09:53mark shalaba and i had heard years ago that he and alex call went toward the facility
09:58but where they do the traject machines and alex call was a big proponent so i i know there was
10:03interest i know they did this and they went and they presented ownership that's a fact what i don't
10:08know is they don't live this they don't live and die with this stuff was it something they wanted
10:13whereas with this group it's something that they need is it the oxygen for this group and it was like
10:19something that would be okay with the last group what is factual and i would think rizzo would
10:24acknowledge this is this group let me go back and say it a different way i remember one time talking
10:30to mike shanahan whatever you think of mike shanahan was one of the most successful run game
10:34coordinators in the history of the league sure yeah and i asked him i'm like what's the difference
10:37within the teams that run the ball really well and the teams that don't at the most basic level and
10:42he
10:42was kind of thinking for a while and he goes running the football is a lifestyle he's like you got
10:47to
10:48talk about it and be about it all week long like everyone in your building has to want to do
10:52it
10:53you can't just and i like this is how i would be as a coach i'll raise my hand i
10:56think jay gruden was
10:57this way so to some extent our buddy but like you can't just on a sunday be like i got
11:01to run it 14
11:01times to keep him honest that kind of deal you know what i'm saying because you're trying to get to
11:05the fun stuff exactly right like no you gotta this is a lifestyle you gotta want to do this right
11:10this group ain't just want it i don't want to traject machine because everyone's got one
11:15no no no we're gonna have the traject machine first we're gonna have traject machines in every
11:20corner of the ballpark i'm making a joke but you get what i'm saying it's very very different when
11:25if you were begging me for a god mike for a mike for a stand-up show that you can't
11:33do the show
11:33without and then you know cakes is going to do stand-up for four minutes downstairs one time before
11:38a junkies event it's a little bit different i wonder how much of that is what's happening here too
11:43right yeah totally fair i i guess the way the way i viewed it i think part of the reason
11:47maybe six one half dozen the other but i think the taboni and company pitch
11:52is let's say for the sake of argument you're grant lerner and you go we got a hundred million dollars
11:57we're going to spend on baseball how would you spend it and he would go well here's what i'll do
12:02we'll spend i'm making this number up 10 million bucks on these machines you can spend less on players
12:06and i'll be able to to spin guys for a profit and you know you'll you'll save the money whereas
12:11rizzo's going i need the budget to go up i need i need 120 million dollars and if i can't
12:16get a
12:16machine in there then then that's fine i think part of why this group is here is we're going to
12:21do more
12:21with less and i think i think we're in for a raise a's brewers future where they they were told
12:27yeah
12:28you can behave like a small market company our team even though you're not you can behave like one
12:32forever i want a raise brewers a's future i just want to spend as well there's no reason why they
12:40can't that's how you should operate with technology and the analytics and the roster building part of
12:46it you should also go out and spend money and i just hope that they don't dislike the idea of
12:52doing
12:52that or think that that's some pejorative that like you can take the shortcut by actually playing
12:56some checkbook baseball but yeah to go with your example or analogy or whatever ownership's giving
13:04you a hundred million i think the difference is this group might want to use 25 million of it on
13:09tech
13:10and data and you know toys and rizzo would go all right every penny we can let's put it into
13:15pitching and pitching you know and the up this group is going let's also have 50 coaches and rizzo's
13:22like we'll have six and it'll all be davy's buddies right you know what i'm saying like it's darnell
13:26cole's around this group's like let's hire 14 dudes from driveline who use language and words that i
13:33don't even like it's a it's spanish to me you know what i'm saying oh yeah it's a very different
13:37philosophy not to knock the old way they won a championship and i think there's markets where
13:42mike rizzo could win again i really believe that he's a good baseball person smart baseball guy
13:47makes great trades but if you're going to do it on the cheap this is the way to do it
13:53for sure
13:53but the question you've got danny is should the nationals take into account how fans feel at the
13:59deadline at all we'll pose that to you guys next i don't think so even a little bit 800-636
14:05-1067
14:05but that isn't to say that they shouldn't be buyers that it isn't to say that what fans want
14:11shouldn't happen it just shouldn't factor into the convo for me but we'll get into that next on the
14:16thank you
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