Most significant stories of 2023: Rizzo and Martinez stay, but staffs change

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2023. We continue the series today with the organization’s decision to re-sign Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez but make changes to each man’s staff …

The question loomed over both Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez’s heads all season. Such is life in the final year of a contract. And such has been the norm for both the Nationals general manager and manager since arriving in town.

“It’s not the first time, won’t be the last time, I’m on a lame-duck contract,” Rizzo said in February.

No, Rizzo and Martinez had been in this several times before, and each time emerged with a new deal. Though not without first having to sweat it out until it became a more-pressing matter for Nats ownership.

In this instance, though, the resolution came earlier than expected. Martinez signed his new two-year extension (plus a third-year club option) on Aug. 21, six weeks before season’s end. Rizzo’s took a bit longer to finalize but still got done Sept. 13, with time to spare.

“I was always confident it was going to happen,” the third-longest tenured head of baseball operations in the majors said that day.

At a time when so much else within the franchise has been in flux, Rizzo and Martinez have provided some much-needed stability. Players have come and go, and the team’s place in the standings has risen to the top and fallen back to the bottom again, but Rizzo has now been the guy in charge of it all for 15 seasons, with several more to come.

Martinez, meanwhile, will continue to extend what already had been the longest run by a Nationals manager in club history. None of the team’s previous six skippers lasted more than 2 1/2 seasons. The seventh one is now guaranteed to be employed for at least eight.

“You could never imagine how this path would go, but we’re here today,” Martinez said after signing his deal on an off-day in New York. “I always talk about being where your feet are, and I like where we’re headed.”

The GM and managerial positions may now be defined by stability, but the positions that serve both of them do not meet the same definition. Even as they retained the two most important people in the baseball operations department, the Nationals made sweeping changes to both their front office and coaching staffs as the season came to an end.

Several of Rizzo’s longtime top lieutenants either resigned (Johnny DiPuglia), were reassigned (Kris Kline, Mark Baca), released (De Jon Watson) or retired (Jack McKeon, Bob Schaefer, Mike Daughtry). They were replaced in some cases by in-house promotions (Fausto Severino, Eddie Longosz), in some cases by outside hires (Danny Haas, Brad Ciolek) and in some cases not at all (the three veteran special assistants to the GM).

Rizzo may still be doing things his way, but he’ll be doing it with a different looking staff, several of them bringing a more modern approach to the job.

“We think all the changes we made have been positive,” he said. “I think our new-look organization will be something that will benefit us in the long term.”

Changes also came to Martinez’s coaching staff, perhaps more than most expected from a manager known for being loyal to some of his closest confidants. Four coaches were let go at season’s end, though, with bench coach Tim Bogar, third base coach Gary DiSarcina, first base coach Eric Young Jr. and assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler ultimately replaced by Miguel Cairo, Ricky Gutierrez, Gerardo Parra and Chris Johnson. Pitching coach Jim Hickey, hitting coach Darnell Coles, catching coach Henry Blanco and bullpen coach Ricky Bones all were retained.

“Obviously, it was a tough decision,” Martinez said. “Very close to all those guys. I’m going to miss them. But I thought it was an opportunity, being where we’re headed, to bring some fresh guys in, and some guys that are very well capable of coaching young players.”

All of these changes come during a critical point in the Nationals’ rebuild. After bottoming out at 55-107 last year, their major league team improved to 71-91 this year and now has visions of approaching the .500 mark in 2024, with a return to postseason contention the goal in 2025. All the while, a remade farm system is being asked to start producing elite big leaguers as the new amateur scouting department tries to keep the pipeline flowing with better performances in next summer’s draft.

In the end, there was valid reason to maintain stability in the two most important positions in baseball operations. And there was valid reason to try something different in a number of other positions.

All will be expected to deliver in 2024 and beyond.