- 13 minutes ago
The Washington Nationals capitalized at the buzzer, sending All-Star pitcher Foster Griffin to the Cleveland Guardians just before yesterday's trade deadline. Do you think the Nationals made the right decision?
Category
đŸ¥‡
SportsTranscript
00:00So, Paul Tabone, busy at the trade deadline.
00:03He ships Foster Griffin, by far the Nats' best pitcher this season,
00:08to the Cleveland Guardians in exchange for three pitchers in return
00:14and an outfielder, Nick Mitchell.
00:18The pitchers are lefty Josh Hartle, lefty Will Dion,
00:22and right-handed pitcher Kendlis Verguez
00:26coming back to the Washington Nationals.
00:30Yeah, that happened kind of late in the day.
00:32It was late in the game.
00:35Yeah, I mean, they acquired eight pitchers in the three deals that they did.
00:39Volume.
00:39I don't know if any of it is super quality.
00:42I know a couple of the guys have good potential.
00:44Yeah, I mean, we talked about the trade for Garcia Jr. going to New York.
00:51I mean, Cruz could develop into a closer.
00:53Yeah, they're excited about a couple of those guys.
00:55I'm sure they're excited about Hartle and maybe a couple of the other guys
00:58for the Foster Griffin deal.
01:01But eight pitchers are acquired.
01:03And, well, they're definitely excited about Connelly early
01:05because you're going to see him this year.
01:06Yeah, I like that deal.
01:08I don't know that I like the other two.
01:10At some point, and I know a lot of fans feel the same way,
01:14at some point, let's keep the good players.
01:17The guys who are producing, the guys who are developing,
01:20the guys who are getting better in a Nats uniform.
01:24Because otherwise, it just feels like all good players.
01:28It's just a pit stop.
01:29I know.
01:29And at some point, it's got to change.
01:31I get it.
01:31One would hope it would change with C.J. Abrams and James Wood.
01:35But I'm sure in the back of the mind, and I know it's a while down the road,
01:39but in the back of the mind of every Nats fan, it's like these guys are going to be gone.
01:44You know, if we were talking six weeks ago, we probably would have said,
01:49yeah, probably a good chance C.J. Abrams moves.
01:52So it's nice that they kept them.
01:54But based on these moves this year, I don't have any confidence
01:57that next year they don't move them.
01:59Oh, I would put heavy money that they would move them next year.
02:03I mean, if they have a baseball season, odds are it's going to be shortened.
02:09But if they do have one and there's a trade deadline,
02:12I'm almost positive they're going to move Abrams.
02:16I think that's very frustrating.
02:17If James Wood was, and now this is just if the learners own the team.
02:21Right.
02:22Which we're assuming is going to be the case.
02:22If James Wood was a free agent to be or had two years left on his deal next year,
02:26they'd probably move him.
02:28It's frustrating.
02:29I know.
02:30At some point, you don't want to be.
02:31Blame the owners.
02:33A pit stop on a destination.
02:35Yep.
02:36I agree.
02:37And then you see Luis Garcia hit a home run immediately.
02:40I know.
02:40But we talked about it yesterday.
02:41They had Garcia and they had Foster and they were four and a half out.
02:45Now they're five and a half out.
02:47Yeah.
02:47They've been on a losing streak.
02:48It's clearly over in terms of this year.
02:50But do you think it would have been different if they,
02:53let's say instead of this losing streak, they had gone 500.
02:57Right.
02:58So they're maybe two and a half out instead of five and a half out.
03:00Yeah.
03:01Just kind of hovering like they had been for the previous couple of weeks.
03:07They probably still make the moves.
03:08Probably do.
03:10Probably do.
03:10He was asked about the losing streak specifically in the presser yesterday.
03:13How did what happened in Atlanta over the weekend influence what happened at the deadline for you?
03:19If you had won three or four, might it have gone differently?
03:22Was it that touch and go?
03:23Or were you trying to distance yourself from the major league results?
03:27And then I have one other quick one.
03:29Yeah.
03:29I think I said it like a week ago in the dugout when I was talking to many of you.
03:35Like I think I said, you know, I think the likeliest scenario here is that we win a few, lose
03:42a few,
03:43and we find ourselves in a pretty similar position.
03:46And then I said something along the lines of like, I think what could change things a little bit is
03:50if we reel off five in a row or we lose five in a row and the effect that that
03:54has on our outlook.
03:55Like, obviously, we lose that string of games.
04:00And to be honest, like I still felt this pull to want to add to this team.
04:07And I just, yeah, I didn't want to do it, you know, recklessly or anything.
04:12But there's just something about this team.
04:14I think I've mentioned it to you all before.
04:16Like they just have a quote unquote like it factor to them and they gel well together.
04:22And I just felt like it's in part my responsibility to to help them, even if we're not going to
04:28go out and make a big splash to do what I can to do what we can to really aid
04:33in these important games down the stretch.
04:37Would it have been different, you know, if we would have reeled off five in a row?
04:41Maybe.
04:42I think realistically, we still probably would have been threading the needle between buying and selling.
04:49You know, maybe we just would have, you know, like Fosters may be a good example, like required a little
04:56bit of a different return if if we did go on a big winning streak.
05:00I don't envy his position one bit.
05:04Paul to Boney.
05:04I mean, he's he has to basically serve two masters.
05:07He has to try to keep the team that's been pretty competitive and in the mix throughout the season that
05:13nobody expected anything of when the season started.
05:16Yeah, but they've overachieved.
05:18So he has to try to keep that on the tracks as well as set the team up for the
05:23future that he knows.
05:24He knows this team is flawed.
05:26He knew that when he when he took over, he and his staff know that they had to redo things
05:31and shape it in their own image and rebuild it the way they want it.
05:35But he's got to kind of do two things at once.
05:37He's got to he's got to do a lot of juggling to try to, you know, keep the fans happy,
05:42keep the ownership happy, keep the clubhouse, you know, from from fracturing.
05:46You know, there's a lot of different, you know, like avenues he has to pursue.
05:51I mean, he knows what his resources are.
05:52The resources are limited.
05:54So and they clearly need pitching help depth anyway.
05:57So they felt like they had to move a couple of these guys and go out as many pitchers as
06:01possible.
06:01Yeah, they did got eight of them.
06:03I don't know if there's a team that got more pitchers in the trade deadline in Washington.
06:08I know you're not expecting to turn into the Dodgers overnight and probably never to turn into the Dodgers.
06:13I would never expect that.
06:14Now, Tim Kirchgen gave a stat.
06:17Yeah, that since 2023.
06:20The top five starting pitchers in the era, four of them are on the Dodgers.
06:24The fifth is Paul Skeens, right?
06:27Yeah, four of them on the Dodgers.
06:28Like not going to happen.
06:29However, you had one all-star pitcher.
06:32Yeah.
06:33His name was Foster Griffin.
06:36Keep him.
06:37It would have cost them $22 million.
06:39I understand.
06:40It's frustrating as a fan.
06:42This team used to spend some money.
06:44Are they never going to spend money again?
06:46The impression is this, we went to the same press conference when Paul Tiboni was introduced.
06:52And the impression that they gave was, we're going to let this guy do things that we haven't been doing
06:59the last couple of years.
07:01Instead, they're still in sell mode.
07:03Yes, they are.
07:04Because I know that there's, I don't know if the $22 million would have got it done.
07:08I know there's discussion that they were trying to thread the needle.
07:13No, they sold.
07:15They sold assets.
07:16JP, I was told that they did offer Griffin two years at $11 million per, so $22 million.
07:21And he did not want that.
07:23So, you're saying it would have cost $22 million?
07:26That probably doesn't get it done.
07:27It says here that a 2027 qualifying offer for Griffin would have been worth around $22 million.
07:35Yeah, I don't know if that would have been enough.
07:37So, they felt like they had to go out and move them.
07:39Let's take this under consideration, too.
07:40Maybe Paul Tiboni thinks that this is Foster Griffin's ceiling.
07:44He's 30 years old.
07:46Like, is he going to have real good pitchers in Major League Baseball?
07:49Go look what Blake Snell's making.
07:50I'm well aware that that's under market value.
07:52And that's why, you know, the reports were out there that the talks for an extension between the Nats and
07:58Foster Griffin fizzled quickly.
08:00At some point, believe in your guys.
08:02Like, this is kind of the same argument you said with Luis Garcia.
08:06It's almost like you're betting that these guys, and you might be right, will never have a year like they're
08:13having right now.
08:14Yeah.
08:15Luis Garcia, he's never had a year like this, so let's sell him high.
08:20Okay, sounds great.
08:21But at some point, keep a guy who's hitting home runs for you.
08:24And same thing with Foster Griffin.
08:26By the way, Foster Griffin, circuitous route back to the Major Leagues.
08:30But at one point, he was a first-round pick.
08:32So, at one point, he was a highly regarded prospect.
08:35Your argument makes sense if you have an ownership group that is willing to up the payroll.
08:41And it doesn't seem like, right now, the learners are willing to spend more money on the product.
08:47I think the learners just always use the excuse, we're still two or three or four years away.
08:51Right.
08:52That's what they did.
08:52They just used that excuse.
08:53Well, then you're always going to be two or three or four years away if you get rid of your
08:57players.
08:57I agree.
08:59I get what Cakes is saying.
09:00I'd love to just add.
09:01He doesn't have any sort of emotion or feeling about it.
09:04Like, don't you think at some point your team should keep your good players?
09:08Yes.
09:09But I've gotten, you're living in kind of like a fantasy land where you think all of a sudden the
09:13learners are just going to get out of bed one day and say,
09:16Hey, you know what?
09:17We're going to spend $250 million on our payroll and compete with the big boys.
09:22Well, they didn't say anything specific.
09:24I've come to the realization that at this point, the learners are not going to do any such thing.
09:29They're going to keep the payroll low at this point.
09:32They're not going to go on a spending spree and spend $30 plus million on a starting pitcher and build
09:37a super team like the Dodgers.
09:39That's why you can't blame Paul Taboney.
09:42Which I'm not.
09:43I'm not blaming him.
09:44I'm not blaming Taboney.
09:45I'm blaming the ownership group.
09:47Yeah.
09:48Okay.
09:48We went to that presser and now again, they didn't say anything specific.
09:54Like we're going to turn into a $250 million payroll paraphrasing.
09:58They basically said, we're going to be different and we're going to empower this guy to help us win.
10:05Yeah.
10:05But that's JP.
10:06That's they're, they're paying you lip service at the, at their introductory presser.
10:10Like it's becoming obvious.
10:11You can't, you can't just, you can't just listen to that and say,
10:14well, they're, they're going to spend money.
10:16They said they were going to do it at the press conference.
10:18Okay.
10:19Well, I can at least put their feet to the fire because they said one thing and left you with
10:24an impression that we're going to do a certain, do things a certain way.
10:28And then they're not, it's more of the same.
10:31This isn't any different than the last several years.
10:35And it makes you think maybe it'll be different.
10:38And they're trying to make an argument to Boney was pointing out.
10:41We could have traded CJ Abrams.
10:43We didn't.
10:43Maybe it will be different.
10:45Maybe they will give CJ Abrams a long-term deal down the road.
10:48Maybe they will keep James Wood, but there's no reason to believe that when those guys are up,
10:54that they're going to keep those guys because they haven't kept anybody.
10:56Well, I totally agree.
10:58Also, I mean, if some of those players like the James Woods of the world,
11:02if they can see what's going on with the, with the track of the organization,
11:06why would they want to sign here?
11:09Why would, why would James Wood want to sign, sign a huge contract with Washington
11:13when he can sign a bigger contract somewhere else with a team that's going to win?
11:16Yeah.
11:17So.
11:18He wouldn't.
11:18I totally agree.
11:19I mean, he's going to, he's going to look elsewhere.
11:21I would put money on the, they're trading CJ next year.
11:24And whenever Wood is up for his deal, they'll trade him.
11:27Look, I hope all the prospects.
11:29If they still own the team.
11:30I hope all the prospects turn into studs and they win a World Series with these prospects.
11:35It's just tiresome, I think, as a fan who watches games that your best players are constantly moved.
11:43By the way, last night watching the Nats game, you know, they take the 3-0 lead,
11:47but they, Kevin Franzen and Dan Kolko did, they had Paul Taboney.
11:51He called in during their game.
11:54So they were talking to him and they were saying that during the Atlanta series,
11:58since there was just so many unknowns and so many rumors that all of these players were going to get
12:03dealt,
12:04that it kind of affected the clubhouse.
12:06And it certainly affected CJ Abrams.
12:09I mean, he did not have a good series against Atlanta.
12:11I think he went two for, two for 12 with five or six strikeouts.
12:16So they targeted him.
12:17They talked about him specifically because there was all these rumors that he was going to get dealt.
12:23And of course he wasn't.
12:24And I'm sure some Nats fans were surprised, but they kept him.
12:29They could have traded him easily.
12:31Easily they could have traded him.
12:32So Boni said that, but he's got two years remaining on his contract.
12:34He's got two years left.
12:35I just don't understand why we're always in a rush to get rid of guys.
12:38Guys, I get that guys could go to free agency and leave you, but why are we not in such
12:44a rush?
12:45Well, it's obvious why you trade a guy with two years left versus one year.
12:49Because the other team is more attractive to them to get a guy with two years of control than one.
12:53If Tarek Skubal had two years left on his deal, the Dodgers would have had to give up a lot
12:57more than what they gave up.
12:58Their best prospect that they gave up for Skubal was number 25 on their list.
13:04Not overall.
13:05No, that's not true.
13:06Zaire Hope is a top 25 prospect in baseball.
13:09Okay, well maybe it's 25.
13:10But that's fine.
13:12If he had two years left, you're getting a lot more than the number 25 in a couple of mid
13:16-range prospects.
13:17Right, but if you keep a guy for two years, there's a chance you could win.
13:21Because that's a player that helps you win.
13:23You've got to add to it.
13:24You've got to keep adding.
13:25I know, but my point is, they were actually in the wild card mix up until a week ago.
13:33Right?
13:33Sure.
13:34Until this losing skid.
13:34They were in the mix.
13:37So, let's just work with two years.
13:39You might be in the mix next year or the year after.
13:41And it'd be helpful to have that guy who has 28 home runs, for example, in C.J. Abrams, who
13:47they've kept.
13:47Yep.
13:49I just would hold on to the assets.
13:51If you're, I get it, if you're a 60-win team, you go 60-102.
13:58Right.
13:59All right, sell.
14:00Load up with guys that are in the minors playing high A ball and double A ball and hope that
14:07they eventually blossom.
14:08But you have to keep adding to what you have.
14:10You can't just keep guys.
14:11You have to add.
14:12They don't have enough pitching.
14:14It's clear.
14:15They don't have enough pitching.
14:16I mean, you have, looking at the arms, they accumulated.
14:18To me, they had a nice lineup, but you didn't have enough pitching.
14:22To me, they have less pitching because they just got rid of their one all-star pitcher.
14:25Well, I mean, maybe the starter, but early will take his spot.
14:28Two more months.
14:29Like, Timoney's looking at it like, we have this asset for two more months.
14:32Am I going to just play out the string with him?
14:35Or am I going to roll the dice and pick up some other arms that I can have control over
14:40over the next few years that are going to help the team?
14:43You have him for two months under this contract.
14:46His job is also to retain some players.
14:49They talked to Foster Griffin's representatives.
14:52They were not able to get a deal done.
14:54You think he hasn't talked to Foster Griffin's agent 20 times trying to hammer out a deal?
15:00Well, you can continue to do that.
15:02They punted.
15:04He has a number that he is not going to go past.
15:07The learners probably say, we're not going to pay more.
15:11Look, I understand how pissed you are and frustrated.
15:16Paul Timoney couldn't have done anything.
15:17They acquired eight pitchers.
15:19I agree with you.
15:19They got rid of one, and they acquired eight.
15:22I said it's on the ownership group.
15:24I'm not blaming Timoney.
15:26Timoney's just a tool.
15:27But that's why they did it.
15:28So, I mean, there's only so much you can do.
15:31It's frustrating.
15:32To try and keep a player.
15:33All right, well, like you said, the ownership has to say, all right, whatever he wants, we're giving him.
15:37Actually, go over whatever he wants.
15:39Brace for when James Wood gets dealt.
15:42It'll probably be two years.
15:43You know what?
15:44I'm ready for it when it happens because I know that's probably the most likely outcome.
15:49Well, then you know you're going to stay a minor league team, essentially.
15:54I'm kind of resigned to that at this point.
15:55It's sad, but that's just kind of the way.
15:57It's pathetic.
15:57This is a town where you won a World Series.
16:00For 10 years, they were contending in the playoffs all the time.
16:03Well, there was a different learner making those decisions.
16:06And that seems like ancient history at this point.
16:08That learner's not here anymore.
16:09Right?
16:10Okay.
16:10So that's the difference.
16:12They said they were going to go back to that.
16:15Okay.
16:15Well, just because they said it doesn't mean anything.
16:18All right.
16:19If you want to weigh in on the Nationals' latest dealings at the trade deadline, you can do
16:23that at 800-636-1067.
16:26Coming up at 7 o'clock, we'll talk commanders with Tashaun Reed from the Washington Report.
16:33He'll join us at 7 a.m.
Comments