Todd Dybas from NBCSports got a one on one interview with Martinez. I have to credit Dybas, he did a great job framing the questions. Martinez is a tough interview, he either repeats back the question or he forgets the question and heads off on a tangent.
Dybas started off with,
other than the Circle of Trust what did you carry over from last spring and what are you doing differently. Martinez spoke for a minute on how much the players really believe in and like the Circle of Trust.
Dybas then mentioned that in previous interviews that Martinez had said he was going to focus on fundamentals this spring. After starting out by repeating the key word from the question along with his favorite "little things", Martinez gave his only decent response of the interview, get 27 quick outs, bunt defenses, scoring runs from third base with less than two outs, turning double plays. And then this nugget: they are working on team oriented defense, individually they are very good but he felt that they didn't work well together last year.
Dybas had a great question about pacing for the six weeks of spring training, how to keep guys engaged. Unfortunately Martinez didn't answer and went off on a tangent about making sure that guys are healthy and physically ready. Someone from the Nats may want to get Davey a pocket schedule, he finished with: "Come the 23rd we want to compete...we want to play the game the right way".
Next Dybas went to the bullpen and asked about the mid section, listing all of the guys competing for the last 4-5 spots on the roster. Martinez agreed that the mid section of the bullpen was critical, that it's about getting outs, and then repeated the guys Dybas had just named off.
Dybas ended with a question about the improvements from the rest of the division. Hard to blame Martinez for dodging this question, simply saying that his only concern was the Nats. But still it would have been nice to hear some comments on the competition, certainly Davey Johnson or Dusty Baker wouldn't have shied away.
This was the last five minutes of the podcast, the rest of it was a pretty good round up of the first couple days in Palm Beach:
https://art19.com/shows/racing-presidents/episodes/4324e4de-34c2-4aec-a235-36cb5ab52bc5