Mike Rizzo explains decision for firing Matt Williams

Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo met with Matt Williams early this morning in his office just outside the clubhouse to inform him that the organization decided to end his two-year run as manager.

"It was face-to-face, man-to-man," Rizzo said. "Matt took it as a professional. He was very thankful of the opportunity to manage this baseball team. He also was thankful for me showing a faith in him to give him his first managerial job. He's obviously very disappointed in the result and the outcome this year. It was a very serious discussion, but a very professional result happened. We wished each other good luck and success moving forward."

After guiding the team to a 96-win, National League East championship season in 2014, Williams was named the NL's Manager of the Year. Nationals ownership gave Rizzo the blessing to pick up Williams' option for 2016 in his contract in mid-February of this year.

Loaded with highest of expectations, the Nationals greatly underachieved this season under Williams.

"It was not our best year," Rizzo said. "It wasn't Matt's best year. It wasn't my best year. As an organization, it wasn't our best year. All of us together feel that the disappointment throughout the 2015 season."

Rizzo attempted to explain the difficulties Williams had in year two after a successful campaign as a rookie manager the season prior.

"I think that there was a lot more trials and tribulations this year," Rizzo said. "You look at the roster that we had in the winter here and going into spring training was a roster that many, many people felt was a championship-caliber roster. That said, you go into spring training and leave spring training with five of your everyday players that did not have much of spring training.

"So a lot of injuries that came into play, a lot of lineups that were kind of, you had to adapt and make up as the season went along. So Matt had to navigate a lot of rough waters and a lot trials and tribulations that maybe he didn't have to in the previous season."

Rizzo was questioned on when he came to the decision to fire Williams and if last Sunday's dugout brawl between Jonathan Papelbon and Bryce Harper factored into it.

"I wanted to give the manager the benefit of the doubt for his full body of work," Rizzo said. "With all the struggles that incurred this year, with injuries and so on and so forth, we have to balance that with the successes that he had last year. So I don't think there was any one tipping point that said "Well this is it, this is the reason." It was after the season looking at the full body of work and making the judgment that going forward, what's going to give us the best chance of having ourselves the championship-caliber franchise that the fanbase deserves."

Rizzo indicated that several players shared their opinions on Williams over the last couple of days. Asked if any players lobbied for Williams to stay, Rizzo chose to keep the results of the conversations private.

So Williams' two years as manager of the Nationals come to a close with a 179-145 record.

"I think Matt had a steadiness to him, a calmness to him that I thought was one of his strengths," Rizzo said. "He led by example, he was an extremely hard worker. Nobody out-worked him, nobody got to the ballpark earlier or stayed later or cared more. So those were his strengths and that's what I think will aid him in his future endeavors as a baseball man, coach or manager."

Rizzo said the search begins immediately for the next manager of the Nationals.