Report: Lerner family no longer attempting to sell Nationals

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Mark Lerner said publicly today what had become increasingly clear over the last calendar year: His family is no longer actively attempting to sell the Nationals.

“Nothing has really changed,” Lerner told the Washington Post. “We’ve just decided that it’s not the time or the place for it. We’re very happy owning the team and bringing us back a ring one day.”

Through a club spokeswoman, Lerner, the team’s managing principal owner, declined a request for a short interview or statement about the state of the sale process.

The Lerner family’s revelation in April 2022 that it had begun the process of exploring a potential sale of the Nationals caught nearly everyone in the organization by surprise. The group had never previously expressed any desire to sell the franchise it purchased from Major League Baseball in 2006 for $450 million.

The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the team and on the family’s commercial real estate business, though, were significant and left some members of the ownership group looking to move on.

But as they explored their options through the 2022 calendar year, the Lerners found few parties seriously interested in purchasing the club. And those that were interested weren’t willing to meet the family’s asking price, which reportedly exceeded $2 billion.

Following the death of patriarch Theodore Lerner in February 2023, there was little positive momentum toward a sale throughout the season, and observers both inside and outside the organization saw little reason to believe that would change in the near future. Now, as the Nationals prepare to open the 2024 season, Mark Lerner elected to publicly reveal what he suggested his family had already decided “a while ago,” according to the Post.

Lerner assumed day-to-day control of the franchise in 2018 after his father formally handed over the managing principal owner title. All club decisions, though, have continued to be made by the entire ownership group, which includes family members Annette Lerner, Judy Lenkin Lerner, Marla Lerner Tanenbaum, Robert Tanenbaum, Debra Lerner Cohen and Edward Cohen.

The decision to explore a sale was not unanimous among the family members, according to sources familiar with their thinking. And no transaction was going to be made unless a buyer was willing to meet or exceed their asking price.

The Nationals had already begun tearing down the remnants of their 2019 World Series championship roster before the possibility of a sale arose. In the ensuing two years, they completed the teardown in full, trading star right fielder Juan Soto to the Padres for five prospects and choosing not to retain any veterans except for the two pitchers who had already been signed to long-term deals: Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin.

The club spent only $22 million on major-league free agents last winter and to date has spent only $9.2 million on major-league free agents this offseason. No free agent has been signed to more than a two-year deal since Strasburg’s disastrous, seven-year, $245 million contract in December 2019.

The Nationals did for the first time lock up a potential young cornerstone who had yet to even reach arbitration last spring when they agreed with catcher Keibert Ruiz on an eight-year, $50 million extension. General manager Mike Rizzo has suggested they are open to exploring similar deals with other young players.

Even so, the Nats (whose payroll ranked among the top-10 in the majors every season from 2013-21) are expected to rank in the bottom-10 this year, with Strasburg and Corbin eating up perhaps 60 percent of the total figure.

Given the state of the rebuild, a low payroll isn’t unexpected. And Lerner has suggested all along the club would begin spending more on free agents once the roster was in a position to begin contending again.

The question facing Lerner and the rest of his family, which now intends to continue owning the franchise for many more years: Will that time come next winter?