The Nationals announced this morning that they’ve agreed to terms on a multi-year contract extension with president of baseball operations and GM Mike Rizzo. The sides were reported as close to an agreement when manager Dave Martinez extended with the club on a two-year deal with a club option for 2026 late last month.
Rizzo, 62, has been part of the Nationals organization since 2006. He’s been at the helm of Washington’s baseball operations since 2009, and now figures to continue in that role for the foreseeable future, though the exact length of the deal has not yet been reported. Rizzo guided the club through eight consecutive winning seasons from 2012-2019, a stretch that including five postseason appearances with a World Series championship in 2019.
Recent years have been far less kind to Washington, however, as the club has finished in last place in the NL East in three consecutive seasons and is currently trending toward a fourth in 2023 with a 65-80 record. The downturn in production was thanks not only to the departure of key players like Bryce Harper prior to the 2019 season and Anthony Rendon the following winter, but also a pair of ill-fated big money contracts; both left-hander Patrick Corbin and homegrown ace Stephen Strasburg haven’t panned out since the club’s championship in 2019, with Strasburg throwing just 31 1/3 big league innings since and Corbin posting a brutal 5.61 ERA in 102 starts over the past four seasons.
With the team’s performance declining and over $300MM owed to Corbin and Strasburg in the coming years, Rizzo made the decision to kickstart the club’s current rebuild back in 2021. In doing so, he dealt not only short term rental pieces like Kyle Schwarber and Jon Lester but also franchise cornerstones Max Scherzer and Trea Turner. A year following that 2021 sell-off, Rizzo pulled the trigger on a trade of young superstar Juan Soto, shipping him to the Padres for a package of prospects and young players.
Difficult as the past few seasons have been for Nationals fans, the future is bright for an organization now brimming with young talent. MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, James Wood, Robert Hassell, Keibert Ruiz, Lane Thomas, and Josiah Gray were all added to the organization at the trade deadline in recent seasons, while the draft has produced top talents like Dylan Crews and Brady House. Today’s extension announcement is not only a vote of confidence from ownership in Rizzo’s leadership, but an opportunity for Rizzo to personally see the fruits of the recent rebuild begin to manifest in the coming years.
Congratulations Mike.
Strasburg’s contract not making everyone too ill apparently …….
I’m mutuals with Dykstra on Twitter and I showed him your account, he loves it haha
I just want to know if they’ve seen Corbin’s contract as well.
Well deserved. NL East has some of the best FO, especially with Stearns now in the mix.
The only one Rizzo will be able to sign is himself.
Many teams in MLB would be lucky to have Rizzo as their GM
That is why I knew the rumor about the White Sox possibly getting him was a pipedream, especially with Reinsdorf still being the Sox owner.. It would have been too smart a move by JR.
IMVHO, the Strasburg is overrated. I know I am in the minority, but consider that In the four years prior to the extension, these are his averages:
14-5 W/L
166 IPs
3.25/3.11 ERA/FIP
135 ERA+
4.4 fWAR
These are great numbers, and they weren’t declining numbers either. His final year before the extension, he led the league in IPs with 209, and even in his worst year, he still had 130 IPs.
FWIW, when he signed the contract, I thought it was unnecessarily long, but his numbers were surely #1, maybe even ace-like numbers.
@joe
while i too thought the contract length and money were a bit on the high side, but i understand the why. other than zimmerman stras has been the face of that organization and help them win the ws. i did feel like the contract was going to end badly but when a player spends life with one team the overpay year’s balance the cheap years out. however i didn’t expect the wheels to come of stras and i feel for the guy, least he got his ring.
also cg nats fans on keeping rizzo here in the next few years that nle is going to be a slugfest every team has a top gm/pbo now
R to the izzo, stays in DCA
Fo’ shizzle my Rizzle will still dribble just north of VA.
A for effort.
In stats vs scouts, Rizzo is the best of the Scouts side. The Nats will be good very soon for a very long time.
The owner of the team just fired 14 scouts, forced out the head of international scouting, and fired a dozen more in baseball operations. Not much left under Rizzo.
Ah, undoubtedly the common corporate strategy of “let’s do more with less!” I’ve never seen any kind of success follow that decision.
I’ve seen that a few times. One company I worked for laid off 10% of its workforce in the 2007/08 slump. Sales recovered within three years, but with no increase in headcount. It did wonders for the stock price. Iv’e been replaced three times for relocation reasons, and once because the company was tanking. I understood all of them.
Good companies aren’t afraid to trim the fat.
The Nationals made a wise decision, Rizzo took them to the promised land and his rebuild is looking like it’s going to be a success soon enough. These are the front office people you want to keep.
Finger wagging about the Nats’ old players? That and $14 gets you a Budweiser on game day.
If they had re-signed the guys in this story, the team in 2025 would be a cyclone of broken bones, ripped ligaments and the thunderous laughter of the entire league after Soto left in free agency and the Nats couldn’t even afford to get him a cocktail napkin from Bluejacket.
Washington had eight winning seasons of star-studded success in the 2010s, littered with awards and division titles and capped with the most thrilling World Series victory of most of our lifetimes.
It will happen again soon. Looking forward to the coverage.
Great news for Nationals fans. After their other recent front office departures it was beginning to look like Rizzo might not be back either.
Worth mentioning that the abominable Strasburg contract shouldn’t fall on Rizzo’s shoulders. That’s all Old Man Ted (may he rest in power)
washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/06/06/stephen-stras…
(See ~5th paragraph down)
Rizzo’s done about as well as can be expected on a low-money team. But while he’s great on identifying FAs, either to contribute or to flip, and OK on trades, the Nats drafting since 2011 (that is, outside the top 5) has been gawdawful. Part of the reason the team is where it is, is that he didn’t keep the pantry stocked.
Nats are “low money”? They were top 5-10 payroll from 2013 till 2021…no?
Every time I think of Rizzo, it takes me back to the Jerky Boys…