It was no secret to Nationals fans that the ball club has been running a very old-fashioned ship in recent years. While many organizations in the league developed and used a variety of strategies such as openers and torpedo bats to gain an advantage, the Nats seemed content to let things run the old way, without change in a league defined by change. However, we did not know the full extent of this resistance to change until recently an article published yesterday by Spencer Nusbaum in the Washington Post revealed what happened behind the scenes in 2025.
According to the article, there was a belief within the organization that they were beginning to make strides in player development to catch up with the rest of baseball. By 2025, however, they felt like they had taken a step back. How is that possible? As it turned out, Mike Rizzo had grown tired of some of the changes being implemented on the player development side of the team, and began creating sweeping mandates that better suited “his vision.”
For example, in 2024, Nationals catchers were told to catch in the position that was most comfortable for them, whether that was the traditional crouch or the modern one-knee-down approach. For whatever reason, Mike Rizzo had enough of the one-knee-down catching stance in 2025 and made it a mandate within the organization for catchers to use the traditional stance.
It’s unbelievable that in 2025, with all the information and data we have available, especially in this case about catching holds, where one knee down has a lot of benefits, like framing and just an overall improvement in endurance for catchers, that a team would choose to limit themselves in such a way. This mandate was removed when Mike DeBartolo took over as interim GM following Rizzo’s firing, but half a season’s worth of opportunities to learn and improve for the Nats’ young catchers had been wiped out by then.
Another move by Mike Rizzo to combat the rise of analytics in the Nats organization was the removal of performance analysts from the dugouts of the Nationals’ minor league affiliates. For years, the Nats had staffers for each minor league affiliate whose job was to translate information to the players and coaches so they could use it. For unknown reasons, before the 2025 season, Mike Rizzo told these staffers not to be in the dugout during games, perhaps somehow believing that filling these players’ heads with numbers and information would make them worse at baseball. This decision was also reversed by Mike DeBartolo when he started the show in July, but it was another half-season of players losing potential advice and teaching moments.
A comment from Nationals 2024 first-round pick Seaver King of the Arizona Fall League really sums up how backwards the Nationals’ player development has been with Mike Rizzo at the helm. After going 3-5 and ending the cycle with a triple-shy in a game in the AFL, King told MLB.com he had been trying to figure out his swing all year and hoped everything else would fall into place.
What helped him change his approach wasn’t coaching advice, but rather the advice of Detroit Tigers shortstop Kevin McGonigle, one of the top players in baseball and currently in the AFL, who told King, “It’s never about the swing. It’s always about pitches and timing and all that stuff.” It took a 20-year-old prospect from another organization to offer insight to King before he turned a corner, something coaches in the Nats organization didn’t offer him. The lack of focus on the plate approach also highlights why players like CJ Abrams, Luis Garcia Jr. and Keibert Ruiz sometimes seemingly have no plan at the plate in the major leagues.
Based on what we knew beforehand and what this article told us, I believe Mike Rizzo knew his seat was hot going into 2025 and decided that if he was going to go out, he would “go his way,” and that meant sticking to his very traditionalist mindset. Between reverting to old free agents like Josh Bell and Trevor Williams in the offseason, mandating the traditional catcher position throughout the organization and kicking the performance analysts out of the minor league dugouts, Rizzo has been all about analytics in a league where the best ball clubs are all involved. With all the information we have now and will certainly get in the future about Mike Rizzo’s views on player development, it’s no surprise that the Nationals have failed when it comes to developing young talent, especially in the passing game.
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