well, execpt the GMs with rings, and world series appearances, and those fortunate enough to have a team get out of the division series.
that and the phills won a ring and got another series appearance with hamels
so much like the cardinals, except the whole success thing?
GM's don't play on the field, or pitch. They set the table, and it's up to the players and manager to execute.
I know you think you're being witty, or clever, but the analogy I'm making is in team building. The Cardinals draft well, win trades, and rarely ever overpay for overage guys. The only flaw we've had is in wasting big money on Werth (stupid signing). Beyond that, the Cardinals strategy of building from within via drafting, trades, and strong internal development has kept them contenders for the better part of 18+ years.
Rizzo has built the Nats primarily from the same foundation, consistently drafting well, winning his trades, and being cautious, but smart (for the most part) in the international market. He's eschewed big money moves with the exception of the Scherzer signing which was basically buying in on Scherzer being a smarter long term investment than Zim, and Werth (big money signing meant to signify the Nats were ready to contend and wanted a strong chemistry building club house voice-a stupid choice in my view as Werth was never worth the money, and intangibles aren't worth 50+ million, especially injury prone intangibles), and utilized his late round picks, well, taking calculated risks over safe plays where warranted (see Rendon-Purke, Giolito, Fedde selections in '11, '12, and '14).
You have to have breaks, and be smart to win it all, right now I have no problem with virtually anything Rizzo has done other than Werth and Matt Williams. Williams should have been fired after his interviews with the press following last falls choke job. As a GM that would signify to me that Williams had learned nothing from the catastrophic series of stupid decisions and failures he personally had a hand in, and was unlikely to grow in the job (show's all the traits of a concrete/inflexible personality whom firmly believes he's learned everything he needs to know, playing the game in the eighties, nineties, and aughts, and has nothing to learn from numbers geeks, or, you know, intelligent strategists).
But the key to me is how Rizzo has chosen to build, and how effectively he's done so: he's shown the ability to make the right choices when the team had valuable picks at the top of the draft, and when the team had choices at the bottom, he's won small tinker trades, and big blockbusters. He's built with domestic, and international prospects, and shown the ability to reload the farm system as needed with smart trades of any scale, and with draft picks in any range.
If you have a GM like that, more than likely, you're going to win, eventually, even accidentally through sheer intelligence and talent. The issue is the manager, and no doubt Rizzo's stubbornness with regards to him. He needs to own his mistake in hiring the guy and can him, immediately, before the season is lost, and the '16 season to boot. Really disappointing that he's being allowed to derail one of the better built teams in recent memory, especially in terms of pitching. For that, I'll join in in bashing Rizzo's reluctance to make a radical decision like canning the manager of an elite team that isn't performing like one, I understand why it's difficult to do so, but this squad will be the best one's the Nats have till '18, maybe '17 if we're lucky, it shouldn't be squandered out of loyalty to an incompetent manager.
