After an offseason of uncertainty, President of Baseball Operations Mike Rizzo will lead the Nationals beyond this year. In a move that showed nearly unprecedented awareness of optics, and turned a spring of internal unrest into a newfound sense of stability, the Nationals signed Rizzo to a two-year extension that will keep him with the team through 2020. His contract was set to expire on Oct. 31. The World Series is scheduled to end a few days after that.
“I really wasn’t [worried],” Rizzo told the Junkies on 106.7 FM. “The trust factor that we’ve built, the Lerners and I over the years, is great, and they have my full respect, I have theirs, and there’s a bond between us that I thought was stronger than anything else. You know, it’s a business decision….you’ve got to feel good about the deal. It’s got to be the right money, and the right time limit, and that type of thing, and it was.”
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Rizzo is the fifth-longest tenured general manager in the majors. Only Yankees GM Brian Cashman, Rangers GM Jon Daniels, Royals GM Dayton Moore, and Pirates GM Neal Huntington have served longer in that position for their current teams. Rizzo took over before the 2009 season, and has built the Nationals into an annual contender with smart drafting and a knack for winning trades. Every first-round pick he has overseen as GM of the Nationals has made it to the majors, with the exception of the most recent two — 2016 first-rounder Carter Kieboom and 2017 first-rounder Seth Romero — who are still in the minors.
The 57-year-old has overseen the growth of a franchise from an annual bottom-dweller to one of the most successful teams of this decade. The Nationals have won four of the past six National League East titles, won at least 95 games four times, developed stars such as Bryce Harper, Stephen Strasburg, and Anthony Rendon, and drawn top front office talent from other teams to join Rizzo’s crew of special advisers. He is one of the last of a dying baseball breed, a general manager who got that job without the trappings of an Ivy League education, his resume built instead on long hours on the scouting trail and a hard-luck minor league career.
Given that track record, one few GMs can match, the idea that Rizzo will have to operate on a two-year deal is somewhat surprising. His peers in baseball’s top management tier — Cashman, Theo Epstein, and Andrew Friedman, for example — all got five-year extensions in their most recent deals. Rizzo negotiates his own contracts, and had expressed a preference for a long-term deal. But that he agreed to this one, at this time, demonstrates his desire to see the team he built achieve the goals he set for it. Terms were not immediately available.
“It was something we’d been talking about. We finalized it about a day ago,” Rizzo told the Junkies. ” … we kind of rushed to get it done this morning. But it was something where there was no deadline to it. There was no plan to get it done before today. But once we got to a point, we thought Opening Day at home would be a good day to make the announcement.”
As of late in spring training, Rizzo had not made much progress toward a deal, something that led starter Max Scherzer to speak out with a stern plea to ownership. Bryce Harper, Ryan Zimmerman, and virtually every longtime National has said the same things about Rizzo: He is loyal. He works hard. And they want him around.
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So the timing of this one is particularly important. Not only is this another season in which the Nationals should contend for a title, and therefore could do without excess distraction, but this offseason, the most celebrated free agent class in major league history — featuring Harper, Manny Machado, and others — will be up for grabs. The Nationals will attempt to re-sign Harper, to bolster their rotation, and perhaps to replace the production of Daniel Murphy, who will also be a free agent. Now, they will not have to hunt for a GM, too.
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