https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/03/22/washington-nationals-team-rebuild/Svrluga channeling his inner IanRubbish.
He highlights the breakup of one of the strongest world series winners, the 1913 Philadelphia As. They won 96 games in the old 154 fame schedule on their way to a World Series, then 99 the next year to win the AL pennant. After that, finances led Connie Mack to sell off his star infield. then he compares the Nats after 2019. Worst record in MLB since then. The Nats .407 winning percentage since 2019 is the worst for a World Series winner since
You guessed it: the Philadelphia Athletics from 1914 to 1918. That includes that pennant-winning team in 1914 but also brutal 109- and 117-loss seasons thereafter. Their winning percentage in that span: .386.
For the Nationals, this has been a historic step backward. Even the Florida Marlins — who unexpectedly won the 1997 World Series and then systematically demolished their team — managed a .435 winning percentage from 1998 to 2002, then went ahead and won the World Series again in 2003.
Noting the trades of Scherzer, Turner, Soto, and basically any other vet they could move while omitting to mention Rendon's departure, he says:
Those moves, individually, made baseball sense. The Nats needed younger potential pillars, and they had no guarantees they could sign any of those players to extensions, particularly Soto. But the departure of established talent also exposed the rickety infrastructure left behind — too many misses in the draft (including first-rounders Mason Denaburg, Seth Romero and Elijah Green) and a failure to develop talent into big league difference-makers.
After that start, he then starts quoting Rizzo and responding to some of his happy talk about young guys now needing to step up, he talks about Rizzo's observation that every team starts with 54 wins and 54 losses, and your record ends up with how you do in the other 54 games. Svrluga's retort:
In the three years of the three-wild-card playoff format, the teams with the fewest wins to reach the postseason were the 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks and Miami Marlins, each of whom went 84-78. Even that would represent a 13-game improvement for these Nationals, who would have to go 30-24 in Rizzo’s theoretical undecided third of the season.
