The two guys who cover for the Washington Times, Mark Zuckerman and Ben Goessling, don't get as much notice as their brethren at the bigger paper in town, which is too bad. They're quality reporters and do a nice job. I'm on board as being a big fan of Nationals Journal in the Post but I need to make it clear I'm a fan of "Chatter" on the Washington Times' Web site, too. They get fewer comments than I do, which doesn't make sense. It's good stuff.
The most recent piece on the general manager situation is a good example. They raise some good points about Mike Rizzo that I had not considered before because I'd been too wrapped up in other things (like Strasburg).
Strasburg's signing has created a good buzz in the organization and among the fan base. The team is playing a bit better, The One and Only has been signed - there's a positive flow going for once.
Rizzo has to get some credit for that, doesn't he? If you disagree, fine, please give me a list of strikes against the guy.
Why not take another step and make him the GM now? Why wait until the end of the season? He's done the job for almost a full season and appears to be making good progress toward undoing much of the mess he was left.
Is there any reason NOT to name him? No offense to former VCU standout Jerry Dipoto or Jed Hoyer.
Why wait? If he is the guy, and I've come around to believing he should be, go ahead and do it now. Let's start removing some interim/acting titles and keep this train moving forward.
Nationals Journal weighs in, too, citing the same Yahoo report about Dipoto. Let's get it straight right now in case he does get the job. It is Dipoto, not DiPoto. Got that straight from Jerry Dipoto himself, as per the report I linked the other day from my other site at www.vasportsnow.com - and I just worked in ANOTHER shameless plug. I'm getting good at that.
5 comments:
Rizzo's not going anywhere. It's clear from the comments Kasten has made about him all along that the organization likes what he's doing for them. And it's clear from Rizzo's public comments that he is a total organization man and not at all disgruntled. He doesn't want to go anywhere else. But I'm sure he doesn't want to indefinitely keep doing the double workload he has assumed since Bowden quit. Another guy obviously needs to be brought on board to take on the workload that Bowden is no longer doing. (And say what you want about Bowden, but there's no denying that he worked 24/7 at that job.) Finding the right guy to bring into the FO to work with Rizzo is the due diligence of which Kasten and the Lerners have spoken whenever they've been pressed on the subject. I don't get the impression that Rizzo is hung up on having the title of GM by his name, but maybe he is, and so perhaps are these guys being interviewed. So that's the dance that's being played out. Find the right guy, convince him to come on board to work with Rizzo, and sort out the titles. The underlying theme, though, is that they're not going to make any kind of change unless Rizzo himself is fully on board with it. (To use an analogy, Rizzo is Donovan McNabb here, and the new guy is Michael Vick.) From the way Kasten was talking about the GM situation when asked about it by Charlie Slowes and Debbi Taylor last night (and you have to know that he was not being blindsided by the question but rather that it was a softball being hurled right into his wheelhouse) it appears that something will be announced very soon. You can bet that the announcement will be that Rizzo is going nowhere and a new guy is coming in. The only mystery is what the job titles will be.
Interesting and you may well be right. But would Dipoto - small p - and Hoyer come in for essentially the same jobs they have now?
Why not name Rizzo the GM and let HIM choose his right-hand man?
Didn't Rizzo leave the Dbacks and come to the Nationals for basically the same job he had there?
And as for "why not make Rizzo the GM and let him pick his own guy?", that's kind of old-school heirarchical thinking. These new-school FO types don't seem to be so hung up on that. And all of the names being bandied about - Dipoto, Hoyer, even Rizzo - seem to be new-school kind of guys. It's more important to those kind of guys that they all have the same basic philosophy and can work together than it is who picked who for what job.
Also, look back to the day when Kasten's Braves kicked Bobby Cox down from GM to manager and installed a new GM (Scheurholz?) above him. Kasten's not an old school heirarchical guy when it comes to running a FO.
Rizzo wanted to be GM in Arizona but was passed over by new ownership in favor of Byrnes, who then decided not to renew Rizzo's contract.
I disagree with the comments above. I think Rizzo's gone after the season, whether it's his decision or Dipoto's.
Does anyone know how to get hold of Manny Acta? I want my money back for that slightly used copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People he sold me back in may when the Nats were here in Phoenix.
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