Barry Svrluga from The Washington Post interviewed Nats principal owner Mark Lerner, and he discussed the current state of the team. Barry joins us here to discuss that article.
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00:00And let's go to the Rood Guest Hotline, Rood,
00:01the most reliable heating and air conditioning products
00:04in the DMV, because Barry Sverlug of the Washington Post
00:07is waiting for us, and we wanted to talk to him
00:09about his exclusive conversation with Mark Lerner
00:12that he wrote about in the Post.
00:14So Barry, thanks for a few minutes.
00:15So let's just start with how long the conversation was
00:19and what kind of ground you got to cover.
00:22I mean, I'm not going to tell you it was 60 minutes,
00:2760 minute long, winding, everything covered interview
00:30because it wasn't.
00:32There's a lot of negotiation just to get him
00:34to agree to talk, which he really hadn't done publicly,
00:40except for brief remarks to our Andrew Golden
00:43from the Post last year,
00:45saying they were taking the team off the market.
00:48And even when I broke the story in April, 2022,
00:53that they were going to put the team on the market,
00:57those exchanges were by email.
00:58He didn't answer questions verbally.
01:00He really has not faced questions from a reporter
01:03in years, literally.
01:07So he did agree to do this.
01:09We had a pleasant chat.
01:10It was 10, 12 minutes long.
01:14And then, you know, we chatted about other stuff,
01:16stuff going on in DC, whatever,
01:17that doesn't matter to this conversation.
01:20But, you know, he's a pleasant person.
01:22He's always been a very nice man.
01:24But, you know, that family has spent the entirety
01:27of their now 19 years in a very public position,
01:32owning a company that people care about
01:37in ways that they don't care about,
01:39a mall or an office building,
01:42not really being very forward-facing people.
01:46That's just their nature.
01:48But I think it was important to at least have him say,
01:52you know, here's why we changed our thinking
01:56on selling the team.
01:57And here's what we envision going forward,
02:01even if those answers don't, you know,
02:04provide a hundred percent clarity
02:06that a lot of people would like.
02:08So that's one of the two huge takeaway conversation pieces
02:13I want to have with you,
02:14but let's do the first one first that you just referenced.
02:16The, yeah, we just wanted to see what was out there.
02:19I thought that was an amazing quote that he had.
02:20I don't have the exact wording in front of me,
02:22but when the team was for sale,
02:24bids were coming in and then they went off the market.
02:27It was a, they just wanted to see what was out there.
02:30I don't know that that's how,
02:31just want to see what was out there looks to me.
02:33But anyway, your thoughts on that.
02:35The translation there is we didn't get our price.
02:38Yeah. And that's just, it's as simple as that.
02:40And he's not going to say that.
02:41And he doesn't have to say that,
02:43but if they were going to be blown out of the water
02:47by an offer, they would have accepted that offer.
02:50I'll go to my grave believing that.
02:52I think they still have a price in mind.
02:56If somebody came in tomorrow and offered them
02:59that price plus $1,
03:00I think the team would be back on the market.
03:05But it's just, that's just not the way things unfold.
03:08But they did say at the beginning of the process that,
03:13look, this doesn't mean we're going to
03:16completely sell the team a hundred percent.
03:19Maybe we could find people who would inject some cash in,
03:22but not have any influence, more minority partners.
03:25You could try to do that.
03:27I've never understood the reasons other than egos.
03:31Somebody would want to be a minority partner
03:33in a sports team because you have the right to put in money
03:37that, and have no decision-making power.
03:40That doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me.
03:43So maybe they were looking for that kind of thing.
03:45Sure, that's fine, but that didn't happen.
03:48None of that happened.
03:49And here we are with, I mean,
03:52another reason to get him to try to talk
03:54or try to get him to talk is, you know,
03:57you go through this kind of public, not fiasco,
04:01but public process and end up in the same place
04:04that you started off, it's fair to wonder,
04:07well, if you weren't a hundred percent in
04:10to the point where you were going to sell
04:12or sell off pieces or whatever,
04:15it's fair to question, are you a hundred percent in
04:17now that you've gotten to the other side of this?
04:19And there's been frankly, you know,
04:21more losing than any team in baseball in the last five years
04:24and flagging attendance and flagging enthusiasm
04:27about the team from the fan base.
04:29And the inability to spend real money,
04:32which I want to get into Barry Spaluga
04:34of the Washington Post is with us on Grant and Danny.
04:37So I know you asked that question
04:38and I want to give you some insight,
04:39give us some insight on that.
04:41What is the explanation for an off season where,
04:45you know, people will point out,
04:46well, here's X amount of millions of dollars they spent.
04:49No, Corbin came off the books
04:51and they basically dollar for dollar replaced that
04:54with a couple million extra dollars,
04:55maybe added to payroll.
04:56They essentially did not add after a year
05:00of Cruz graduating and Wood graduating and being closer
05:03and theoretically turning the corner in the rebuild,
05:07they had an off season where they could have gone out
05:09and been aggressive and they were the opposite of that.
05:12What is the explanation for that?
05:14It's not one that's particularly satisfying
05:16and on a couple levels, I would say.
05:19One, when I asked that, like you've spent on payroll,
05:24you've spent on big contracts in the past,
05:27Max Scherzer, $210 million, Jason Worth, $126 million,
05:31Patrick Corbin, $160 million,
05:33extensions for Strasburg and Zimmerman,
05:36et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
05:39Would you do that in the future?
05:41And he said, if Mike Rizzo
05:44and the baseball operations department came to us
05:47and said, we think that this would be a good move,
05:51we would talk about it.
05:53That is not, we would do it.
05:55So I put in this piece that these words
05:59are gonna be parsed and they're going to be parsed
06:02because there are so few of them from him,
06:05not just in this piece,
06:06cause there's plenty in the piece,
06:07but so few of them over time, year over year,
06:12you just don't have a lot of glimpses into their thinking.
06:14I mean, I was thinking about this in particular,
06:17I was working on trying to get Mark Lerner
06:20as I was sitting down in Ashburn
06:23for Josh Harris's season ending press conference.
06:27Ted Leonsis does nothing but get on the airwaves
06:32and talk about his teams.
06:34So it's a very, very, very different approach.
06:38So back to the contracts, like he said,
06:41we would listen, we would talk about
06:43whether it was the right thing for a big contract,
06:46a Worth type contract.
06:49That's different than saying we would do it.
06:51And then secondly,
06:53he alluded to the Jason Worth contract,
06:57which was the first big free agent signing in 2011.
07:00Your good buddy, Jason Worth,
07:02I know you guys like to hang out together.
07:04He said, the timing was perfect there.
07:12He's the guy that got us over the hump.
07:14Well, if you look at it,
07:15like this is exactly the time when they signed Worth.
07:19It's an analogous time.
07:21It's not a year from now.
07:23They signed him coming off of a couple of hundred
07:25boss seasons and then they went 80 and 81
07:27and then won the division in 2012.
07:30Like this was the time and they did not do that.
07:35And I don't have a better answer as to why.
07:39And it's kind of revelatory about the interview.
07:44It wasn't one of those ones where I felt like
07:46I had infinite time to follow up
07:49and drill down and grill and all that kind of stuff.
07:52It was going to be like,
07:53bing, bing, bing, get in and get out.
07:55And so I don't have a really satisfying answer as to
07:58why did that not happen this season?
08:00Because this season is analogous
08:02to the Worth season signing.
08:03Barry Schillinger with us here on GND.
08:05And it sounds like I'm shooting the messenger here, Barry.
08:08You're delivering it.
08:09And your point is of course, correct.
08:11It's the big disconnect.
08:13That's why so many fans, myself included,
08:15are just pulling their hair out and screaming.
08:17You look at the parallels.
08:19This team is better than that team.
08:21The team that just finished playing in 2024, more war.
08:25One positive war in that 2010 pitching staff.
08:28Levon Hernandez is 110 years old.
08:30Half the team's offensive war was Ryan Zimmerman.
08:32You look at this group now, more everywhere,
08:35more young players, a better core.
08:37This was the time.
08:38Do you really think that this was a baseball decision
08:41or something else?
08:42And if it's something else,
08:43obviously part of a much larger conversation.
08:45Well, I mean, I think it's not a baseball decision.
08:48And that's not to say, Danny, that, okay,
08:51so you take Soto out of the equation
08:52because they weren't going to spend $765 million.
08:55And I think you can defend that
08:56even though I'm an enormous Juan Soto,
09:00baseball drummer for Juan Soto.
09:01But I think you can pick apart,
09:03like why did Pete Alonzo not get more
09:06than two years from the Mets?
09:07Like Alex Bregman, it took a long time
09:09to get the deal he got from Boston.
09:12Like if you go around and look at the offensive free agents,
09:18you can pick holes and say those weren't the guys
09:22that are going to be difference makers for us
09:24in six or seven years.
09:26I know that they wanted to go after Christian Walker
09:28and they were prevented from doing that.
09:30You can also argue if he really a game changer
09:33as an aging first baseman, excellent defensively,
09:36can hit for power, but maybe you could argue
09:38that Nathaniel Lowe is a okay version
09:42of what you would have gotten out
09:43of an aging Christian Walker.
09:45So you can parse the baseball stuff,
09:49but I think the answer to your question is
09:51if there had been somebody on the market
09:54that Mike Rizzo and his staff said, this is the one,
09:58my sense is the answer would have been,
10:00we're not doing it now.
10:01And again, we did not address this very specific thing
10:06in our interview, but my strong sense
10:09from around the organization is what I would consider
10:13to be a little bit backwards thinking
10:15that we need more people to buy tickets
10:18so that we have revenue coming in to pay players.
10:23I think it's backwards from, we need to pay players
10:26so that people have reason to buy tickets.
10:29That's how I would phrase it.
10:31And then, further complicating all of this
10:34is of course Massen, the 20 year shadow
10:37over the entire operation.
10:39They're not getting the money from the Orioles right now
10:43for the latest five-year installment of Massen TV rights.
10:48That's a legitimate hindrance.
10:50If they don't get that money,
10:52that's $320 million from 2022 to 26,
10:56that they could turn into mid-level free agents
11:00or whatever they wanted to turn it into.
11:03I would give them the right to say,
11:05and Mark couldn't talk about this
11:07because it is in the courts,
11:08but that is pretty legitimate
11:11that they're getting right now,
11:13zero in that revenue stream
11:17when they should be getting an average of about,
11:19I guess it would be 60 or $7 million a year.
11:23That's well said.
11:24Barry Sferluga is with us on GND.
11:25So I guess I have a two-parter.
11:27One of them is just a reaction to what you were just saying,
11:30or at least a rebuttal,
11:30and I'm kind of arguing with someone who's not here
11:33who you're explaining the thoughts of,
11:35but you would think that they would get
11:38the if you build it, they will come thing, right?
11:42They've had six years where their attendance
11:44was well over 30,000 a game,
11:46and they were the 2013 to 2019 years.
11:49It was when the team was good at baseball.
11:53I don't think it's that much of a science experiment
11:57to figure out that when you're winning 94 games,
12:00more people are coming to your ballpark.
12:02So I guess that's thought number one.
12:03But then the second thing is,
12:05I went into this off-season thinking,
12:07if they don't spend a little bit,
12:10I'm going to assume that this group's
12:12not gonna spend again.
12:14And they didn't.
12:15And that's kind of now my assumption.
12:17Am I wrong for thinking that way?
12:19I think you're not wrong.
12:22I think we don't know.
12:23And I think I would say just a couple of things.
12:25One about attendance,
12:26like if you look at attendance highs
12:30are generally not the year in which the team is successful.
12:34It's the following year because you get excitement about,
12:36hey, we just won the division title,
12:39and I'm thinking about a partial season ticket plan,
12:41and maybe my buddies and I'll go in on one,
12:43and I'll do 20 games a year, whatever it is.
12:46So that's why 2013, which it was a disappointing year,
12:50that was the World Series or Bust,
12:52Baby Johnson's second year,
12:56it didn't work out.
12:57They did not win the division title.
12:58Coming off the 2012 season,
13:00when they broke through and Bryce was a rookie
13:02and all of that stuff.
13:03Still their highest attended per game rate ever
13:06was that 2013 season.
13:092005, the inaugural season.
13:12Yeah, that's true.
13:13But at Nats Park is what I'm talking about,
13:15but that's true.
13:16Correct, correct, correct, for sure.
13:17So you're right about that.
13:19Like they should draw some lessons
13:21from attendances in the past.
13:25I also would say the unknowable here,
13:27and again, showing the limitations
13:29of my conversation with Mark,
13:31and I'm not sure whether he would even address this,
13:35but all of that stuff is pre-COVID,
13:39really laid waste to a lot of commercial real estate
13:43companies and really had a huge impact on businesses
13:47that have a large stake in like office buildings
13:51and things like that.
13:52And that is Lerner Enterprises.
13:54Now they're diversified.
13:55I don't profess to be an expert on their business,
14:00but the question, it's a long-winded way of saying,
14:04did the impact of the pandemic have such a profound impact
14:08on your business that that is in turn having an impact
14:13on how you run your side business, which is the nationals.
14:19Steve Cohen in New York, and it's a bad example
14:21because you don't expect,
14:23we don't have to expect the learners
14:25to spend $370 million on payroll,
14:28but he is very clear that,
14:30look, I may not be able to do it,
14:32but he is very clear that,
14:33look, I made all my money in this hedge fund stuff.
14:37That is my primary business.
14:39This is my side business.
14:41I can spend money, my own personal money on this business,
14:46on the baseball team because I want to,
14:48and I wanna be kind of a hero to Mets fans.
14:51That's a very different take
14:54than the learners have on their team.
14:56And I just always wonder how,
14:58what's the relationship between the core business
15:02that the learner family grew up with,
15:03that Ted Lerner made them billionaires
15:06and their running of the baseball team.
15:08Right, let me sneak one in super quick.
15:10We're up against it, but I wanna know this one.
15:12If they were in the bidding for certain guys,
15:15then they said, you know what?
15:15That's probably too rich for our blood
15:16to overpay for Anthony Santander or name that player.
15:20I think I'd feel a lot better about it.
15:22The fact that they weren't linked to anybody,
15:24I think is the part that I find most distressing.
15:26Your reaction.
15:27Yeah, I think that's fair, Danny.
15:29I also think there's a reality,
15:31and if you go back to the Worth example,
15:32because I think it's so analogous,
15:35they're in a position right now
15:36where they have to overpay to break any sort of tie
15:39because they're on an island, they're young,
15:43and if you believe in them up and coming,
15:46but that might not be really easily seen from the outside.
15:49So they're not gonna beat the Red Sox
15:52on an equal offer for Alex Bregman.
15:54They're not gonna beat the Blue Jays
15:56on an equal offer for Anthony Santander.
16:00It's a hard position to be in
16:02until they show the rest of the sport that,
16:04oh my, your good core is really, really good,
16:07and I wanna be a part of that
16:08kind of in the way the commanders are.
16:11They're gonna have to overpay to break all those ties.
16:14Which makes sense.
16:17I don't need Alex Bregman.
16:18Christian Walker would be nice, right?
16:20I'd just like to walk before I could run.
16:22But it's a great piece,
16:23and really, just getting to talk to Mark Lerner
16:26is an accomplishment, so well done.
16:28Darius Faluga of The Post here on Grant and Danny.
16:31Thanks for the time, we really appreciate it.
16:33Appreciate it, guys, the next time.
16:34Yeah, go check it out in The Post.
16:35It's a worthwhile story on the Nats and Lerner.