If the Lerners won't run the Nationals properly, it's time to sell

Washington Post

3 days ago

The Lerner family either should run the Washington Nationals properly or sell the team. Because a labor-management battle is likely after the 2026 season, they need to decide in the next year.
Are they 'in,' with all the risks attendant on being a competitive team? The price of poker is high.
Or are they 'out,' selling the team for about $2 billion on their $450-million purchase price? (They also borrowed $200 million of that initial cost to leverage up their final return, and the team plays home games in a publicly funded park.)
Ah, the agony of first-world choices.
My preference would be for the Lerners to continue owning the team. The family has deep Washington roots. The late Ted Lerner forever will be the owner who brought D.C. its first World Series championship in 95 years. Legacy and continuity fuel long-term franchise success.
But the current Nats, now in their sixth straight season with a sub-.440 record, are in territory that is seldom explored except by expansion teams — or the 1950s Washington Senators. This 'rebuild' is precariously close to becoming a collapse.
To be the owners the nation's seventh-largest market should expect, what should the Lerners (or another owner) do?
Usually, there is no easy answer to a big question. The aftershock of firing the team's two authority figures, team president Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez, leaves the Nats with a roster of kids mentoring kids, and the trade deadline will subtract even more veteran stability.
But the future doesn't have to be bleak. There actually is an answer, if the Nats ownership is serious about competing:
Double everything. By Opening Day 2027.
If you have three coaches and one trainer at your Class AAA affiliate in Rochester, then double it to six coaches and two trainers. Why? Because your competitors have as many as 11 coaches and three trainers.
If you have five major league scouts, then double it to 10. Why? Because a few years ago, the Nats had 14 major league scouts.
How can you make smart trades by Aug. 1 if you have just five scouts scouring the 50-plus minor league teams of the dozen clubs that may be deadline buyers?
As for grassroots organization-building investments, the small-market Rays dwarf the Nats' commitments.
This infernal internal fuss-budgeting about expenses considered essential by well-run teams has made Rizzo, and Stan Kasten before him, beat their foreheads on their office walls for 20 years. It sounds like 'S.O.S.'
Now, here comes the big one, though it isn't really big at all: The Nats need to double their payroll for players who are actually on the field on the 26-man roster.
Right now, it's a pathetic $60 million to $65 million. By the start of the 2027 season, it should be $130 million.
Why is that a reasonable ballpark number? For comparison, what team has the 20th-highest payroll? The Kansas City Royals at $130 million, according to MLB's analysis of the present value of all a team's contracts, which USA Today published in April.
The D.C. area population is 6.3 million. K.C. is 2.4 million. The median income here is 43 percent higher. The Nats, with a bad team, are 20th in MLB in attendance this year. They can afford to spend.
That same MLB analysis, designed to give a sense of what a team has to pay out in cash this season, showed the Nats with a 2025 payroll of $107.7 million. That includes deferred payments to Stephen Strasburg ($26.7 million a year through 2029) and Patrick Corbin ($10 million).
Other smaller or less affluent markets surpass the Nats. The Orioles, Tigers and Twins have present-value payrolls of $162 million (15th), $143 million and $142 million. The Nats are 24th. But when you take out the Strasburg and Corbin payments, what they're spending on the on-field product is even lower.
(And no sympathy will be extended for those dead-money costs. Owners, especially in large markets, have to take the ugly deals along with the fabulous ones; that's baseball. If you can't swallow a couple of bad breaks and rotten contracts and still match payrolls with Kansas City, then you shouldn't own an MLB team.)
In baseball, for generations, owners may make or lose millions in a given year, but what doesn't change is the escalation of franchise values. Witness the $1.5 billion the Nationals have appreciated by since the Lerners bought them.
When your MLB net worth is that much in the black, and you sell 'our rebuild is on track' to ticket buyers, you can't lowball your operational budget so much that your GM is scrounging the discount bin of the pitching market, as Rizzo was.
And despite what this gruesome summer would seem to indicate, getting to 'competitive' really wouldn't require a reckless shopping spree.
How do you win 88 to 98 games, the range for being a likely wildcard or winning a division? It's a basic question in the analytics age. There is a stat answer, and it can be found in WAR (Wins Above Replacement).
A replacement player is a guy you get fast for nothing — a minor-league call up or a trade of nobodies. A team of replacement players, say the math PhDs, wins 48 games. For every win above replacement, add one to that 48. So a roster with a combined WAR of 40 to 50 will win about 88 to 98 games.
Almost all of a good team's WAR comes from its best 15 players. The rest of the roster should cancel out to about zero. This isn't a law, just a rule of thumb. But look up the 2012, '14, '16, '17 and '19 Nats. Or any excellent team.
You'll find four to six stars with WARs that, as a group, average about 4.5 per player.
Max Scherzer, Juan Soto, Anthony Rendon, Harper, Ryan Zimmerman, Jordan Zimmermann, Strasburg and Trea Turner fell between 3.6 and 5.6 WAR per season while with the Nats.
On playoff contenders, about five more players average WAR of about 2.5. That's Gio Gonzalez, Ian Desmond, Denard Span, Daniel Murphy, Tanner Roark, Jayson Werth and Adam Eaton.
About five more need 1.5 WAR, like Adam LaRoche, Wilson Ramos, Danny Espinosa and Tyler Clippard.
Along the way, you may need help from one big season from a Howie Kendrick, Corbin or Doug Fister.
From year to year, players bounce from one group to another. They're not stat robots. But add it all up, and in your good years, your team WAR is 40 to 50.
The toughest puzzle piece is getting the elite stars — and that's where these current Nats have it easy. This season, James Wood, MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams are on pace to combine for 19.1 WAR — all on modest contracts. In their five playoff seasons, the top three Nats totaled 14.2, 15.9, 16.5, 20.0 and 18.3.
This is where ownership matters. It's doubtful your baseball people can come up with all the additional players needed to contend solely through draft-and-develop or scout-the-world-and-sign or trade-for-'em. Owners need to buy some, too.
Rizzo's trades for low-cost young stars have left the Nats in strong position for free agents. His successor will have plenty of payroll space, if allowed to use it. The way Ted Lerner bought Scherzer, Corbin, Werth and, on shorter deals, Murphy, Span, LaRoche, Rafael Soriano, Aníbal Sánchez and others.
Ted Lerner's payroll got above $200 million. The current luxury tax payroll is $241 million. Those levels are light-years away from a 2027 Nats roster that could be put together for $60 million. Who would be on such a cheapest-possible team? The Nats would still have Wood, Gore, Abrams, Dylan Crews, Brady House, Jake Irvin, Jacob Young, Luis García Jr., Jose A. Ferrer, Brad Lord, Cole Henry, Robert Hassell III, Daylen Lile, Cade Cavalli, Alex Call and every prospect now in the minors.
So 'doubling it' on the current on-field payroll isn't asking a lot. And that's how you improve record, increase crowds, local TV viewership and every other revenue stream.
Risky business. Always has been. How serious do you wanna play?
Cycles turn and times for change do arrive. That's where the Nats are now: They're stripped for a sale, or they're lean, mean and ready for hardball — if the Lerners choose.
Since Washington had its parade in 2019, the Lerners have been genial folks, perhaps complacent with their lovely rings. They've been frozen by family disagreement about direction and budget. They twiddle, economize and hope. They mean well. But in the big leagues, that's not 'owning.'