I’ve mentioned it on Twitter before that Davey Martinez has gotten a lot of undeserved cover from the popular memory of the Nats rebuild. This is his eighth season as manager and almost assuredly his sixth with a losing record. With the Nats rebuilding since the Soto trade many have given him, somewhat fairly, a pass for so many losing seasons after the World Series win. However, going by preseason expectations Martinez has only just now evened out in terms of contenders/rebuilders. His first four seasons, 2018-2021, were all supposed to be playoff teams based on the preseason roster and Martinez instead went 266-280 over that span. He only just recently has managed more games with a rebuilding team than not and that depends on whether you call 2025 a full rebuild/tank year.
I said in the preseason that while the Nats had not built a good team they had clearly made a better team with more expectations than the last three years. And despite some great starts to the season from James Wood, MacKenzie Gore, and CJ Abrams, the Nats have not looked any better and in some cases have looked worse than the 2023-2024 editions. For example, the Nats’ current eight game losing streak is their longest since a nine game losing streak in July 2022.
Here's another fun fact, there have been 849 men who have managed at least one game in MLB, Martinez ranks 32nd in games below .500 with 117 more losses than wins. If he were allowed to finish out the season at the same pace he will jump up to 14th place at 170, just behind good friend Jim Riggleman. What an interesting coincidence.
Anyways if pure wins and losses isn’t enough to get a guy fired, what should be is his completely inability to learn anything on the job. Martinez is the exact same manager he was when he bungled having a lineup with Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, Trea Turner, and Anthony Rendon. He still has absolutely no idea how to manage a bullpen, still only thinking about the current game situation and overusing the few relievers he trusts until they’re broken and on the IL.
And he still loves to give unbelievably derogatory comments about his own players to the media completely undermining the confidence of his young players. Back in 2019 it was publicly and ignorantly questioning the pitch selection of his all-star closer Sean Doolittle when he gave up a game-losing home run.
Today it’s defending that same Doolittle, now a coach, from the very thought that an MLB coaching staff could have anything to do with a team losing, saying this:
“It’s never on coaching. Never on coaching. Coaches work their asses off every single. We’re not gonna finger-point here and say it is coaches. It’s never on the coaches. They work hard. The message is clear, all the work is done prior. Sometimes, they have to go out there and they have got to play the game. It has always been about the players. I have played this game a long time. Never once have I blamed a coach for anything. We worked our asses off to get better. They gave us information and we used it.
These guys understand what the game is. I have never had such a good group of coaches who work as hard as they do. They go over everything, sit with the players every day. These coaches, they work their asses off. And I know every coaching staff is like that. Sometimes, the players know, sometimes you have to put the onus on the players. They have got to go out there and play the game the right way. We can’t hit for them, we can’t catch the ball for them, we can’t pitch for them, we can’t throw strikes for them. They have to do that.”
Shockingly, the Nationals players were not only uninspired by those words, losing yet again to the Miami Marlins, but were also “shocked, dismayed and pissed,” according to Andrew Golden of the Washington Post.
For a long time the best defense people could offer up for Martinez is that while he’s not the best at the in-game tactics, as a former player he knows how to relate to his players and help get the best out of them. While that’s never really felt entirely true (see his Doolittle comment above among many examples), it is an especially farcical argument to take up now after these comments. Martinez has never been good at his job, was allowed to fire his World Series winning coaches and hire his best buddies and is now saying that anything that goes wrong isn’t his fault and is because his players suck. How can you possibly let this continue?
I say the Nationals take Davey up on his proposed experiment. If the manager and coaches are never responsible for the team losing, then why do the Nats need them? Let’s fire them all.
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