Slate, your strawman argument doesn't hold water. You've gotta look at Rizzo from 2009 on and how he handled certain things that turned the Nats around. You like to point out Strasburg, Harper, and Rendon, but those three don't take the whole team and elevate them to annual contenders starting in 2012. He signs Jayson Werth to a deal that shows the Nats ARE invested in moving out of the cellar. He sticks with Ian Desmond at short who blossoms into a 20/20 player for the early portion of the 2010s. He turned Adam Dunn into Alex Meyer and Brian Goodwin, and Meyer brought back Denard Span. He trades a bunch of garbage bins and gets back players like Michael Morse, Doug Fister, Gio Gonzalez, Tanner Roark, and so on. He would sign random guys like Chad Tracy to fill out the bench. He made bullish moves on the likes of Asdrubal Cabrera and Kurt Suzuki. You don't get the 2019 Nats without going through those other years and other guys. You don't get to sign Max Scherzer to come and help win a WS without first changing the organization with a Jayson Werth signing.