https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/12/14/nationals-player-development-staff-size/Maybe this goes in the Clubhouse, since it concerns development and the rebuild. And Clubhouse seems to get more readers.
Maybe in the Minors, since it talks about player-development staffing.
By Jesse Dougherty
Today at 8:23 a.m. EST
In 2021, the year they hit the reset button and placed a heavy emphasis — and heavy expectation — on developing young players, the Washington Nationals did not list a single nutritionist or mental skills coach in their minor league system. They didn’t have a full-time video staffer, a standard position for most franchises, at any level, leaving an intern to handle video and advance scouting at each affiliate, distilling information into a pair of iPads at every site. The Nationals also went the entire season without a catching coordinator, a basic role filled by every other organization, and acquired three catchers at the trade deadline in July.
When those players arrived, they found no minor league coach focused solely on their fundamentals or game-calling. The role was only addressed when Randy Knorr was reassigned in November.
“We were short on personnel,” General Manager Mike Rizzo told The Washington Post in November. “You saw it in the stress levels of some of the staff members. Some guys were doing double duty; we had infield coordinators managing teams. We felt this year that we were strapped and it was something that we had to address, and ownership knew it.”
The article says that only one other team carried fewer development staff than the Nats. (Oddly, the Nats have about as many as the Cardinals, a team I usually think is a good development organization). The Yankees and the Mets have more than 80 staffers, while the Nats had about 46.
