It is not often that I agree UMDNats but I wholeheartedly agree with his analysis as I believe most other posts on this thread are pure speculation based upon the adage "that the Lerners are cheap". The WaPo is not what I would consider having an ear into what the Lerner family is thinking. Remember that the sale was offered in whole or adding additional investors . They are not going to kill the fan base by wholesale cuts to the front ofice and with a minimal staff of scouts at all levels .
Jesse Dougherty has enough sources and credibility to have a good idea of what ownership's plan is for the near future. And he's reporting that these cuts are due to a desire to trim budget, not improve the front office.
Frankly, firing/cutting people for the purposes of improving the team would come from Mike Rizzo, not ownership. In the last two months, there have a been over a dozen personnel cut and no one has said anything about bringing in fresh blood, new eyes. Jesse Dougherty is specifically reporting this is done to cut the budget.
Im not sure I buy that JDP was fired for the international signingd. Cruz isnt even 20, so not getting out of A ball isnt that big of a deal. If he's being fired for that, why isnt Rizzo fired for Elijah Green. And yea, fired a bunch of scouts, but no talk of getting new ones. And Dipuglia had a decent reputation. Again, no talk of replacing and augmenting.
Two years ago, Rizzo hired a whole bunch of new people to get us up to where most of MLB was. Now the Lerners are cutting people in the middle of a rebuild, during a time when baseball is emphasizing finding young talent. There is no baseball reason we should be doing cutting staff. Nor is there any reason to give ownership the benefit of the doubt here.
With Jesse Dougherty reporting this being done for budget reasons, and absent any influx of new player development/scouting, I see no reason to believe the Lerners arent trying to be cheap. Im just hoping its because they have a plan in place to quickly sell the team.
