Nats President of baseball ops Mike Rizzo joins G&D to discuss ALL things 2025 Nationals.
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00:00We are pleased right now to be joined on site to kick off our spring training coverage
00:04by the President of Baseball Operations for the Nationals, Mike Rizzo. Mike, it is great to see
00:08you again. Welcome to West Palm Beach. We are happy to be here. It's a long time coming. It's
00:14tough sitting back in the cold, watching the games, scrolling box scores, but you guys have
00:19been working hard, getting a lot done. We have gotten a lot done. It's been a really busy spring
00:23training, you know, backfields into mornings and game times, and we've had a couple of split
00:29doubleheaders already, so yeah, we've been busy. What's impressed you so far this spring from the
00:34guys? Well, it's just, you know, the kind of camaraderie that they've made already. The,
00:41you know, the feel of the clubhouse is great. The veterans have kind of seamlessly came in and
00:46have kind of made their mark so far early in spring training, and, you know, the young core
00:51guys who've been together in the minors that are kind of ascending to the big leagues at the same
00:56time. You know, they've got a good feel for the good group, and, you know, I see guys,
01:02you know, working hard with a smile and, you know, going through their paces and getting ready
01:07for the season. Mike, I've been talking to you for years with spring training and over the air
01:13during the season, and the message is kind of always the same. Like, you don't really think of
01:18it as you guys are rebuilding or not in the mode of winning, right? But the last couple of years,
01:23you guys have been trying to build up the system, and occasionally that means still trading pieces
01:27off. Back-to-back years, it's 71 wins. Although last year, I think you guys would have won more
01:32than that had you retained the roster. You made some growth. Where do you see this team this year?
01:37Is this now a club that can get over that 500 hump and really compete, or where do you see
01:43you in the build? Well, we're going to compete each and every game. You know, we've got a tough
01:47division that we're going to grind it out against some really good teams, but, you know, people,
01:51the teams we play, they know when we've played them, and I think that, as showed up last year,
01:56you know, we had some success against the Braves and played some close games against the
02:01Phillies and the Mets and, you know, the rest of the, you know, the tough National League. So,
02:05you know, they know we're coming. We, you know, we think that we can compete against anybody, and
02:10we're just going to grind it out and play every day. You know, the most important game is today's,
02:14and we want to win today's game, and, you know, at the end of the season, we'll see where
02:19we're at. We'll let the chips fall where they may, but we're here to compete and win every game.
02:23One of the guys that I think a lot of Nats fans are excited to see this year is Dylan Cruz,
02:26obviously. How important was it to get him that cup of coffee in the bigs last year so that he's
02:31able to come in with a little better understanding he's gone through at least a little bit of a big
02:35league season and has seen the pitching at that level? You know, I think it's important. You know,
02:39you hate to rush a player to the big leagues for the wrong reasons, but, you know, for the
02:44right reasons, we got him some time last year at the big league level, and, you know, we thought
02:49he belonged. We, you know, we see this year that he's going to be a good player for us for a long
02:54time, and I think, you know, getting his feet wet with some of his old teammates, you know, Woods
03:00and Abrams and that group, I think was important, and I think it builds a bond between those guys
03:05who come up together and kind of hang together and, you know, build that camaraderie in the
03:10clubhouse and on the field. Cruz, a college World Series champion at LSU, the number two pick
03:15in 2023, not even two years removed, and here he is with big league experience, you know, about to
03:21spend a full year in the major leagues. Mike Rizzo, the president baseball operations of the Nats,
03:26is with us. Going into the offseason, before it started, like, what were your goals? What did
03:30you think you might be able to accomplish, and how many of those things did you get to check
03:34off the list? We thought we'd had a pretty good offseason, you know what I mean? We wanted to,
03:37we wanted to come in, and we looked at what happened last year, and, you know, we were
03:42really encouraged about our young pitching, and I think that, you know, part of the young pitching
03:46is also young defense, and we played poorly defensively last year, I thought, so we wanted
03:52to shore up that end of the game, so, you know, defensively, you know, we went out and got a
03:58gold Glover at first base, which we think will help all our young infielders, you know.
04:04Paul DeYoung, I think, is going to be a solid add for us defensively at third base. I think he's,
04:09you know, he's a guy that you can count on to catch the ball and make plays and that type of
04:14thing, and then to go along with a year under their belt with all three outfielders, I think
04:21you're going to see a dynamic defensive outfield, you know, with Wood, Young, Gray, Alex Call,
04:28and then you got Hassel behind him, and Pinkney, and Dylan Lyle, so, you know, we're pretty flush
04:34with good athletic defensive outfielders, you know, CJ, the first half of CJ Abrams, you know,
04:41that's the defensive guy we need at shortstop. Louie made a big jump defensively last year,
04:46and we see that getting a little bit better, even from what he was last year, so I think that
04:54we went out and shored up the defense. We got two, you know, veteran middle of the lineup guys in
04:59low, and Josh Bell, we think he'll take a little onus off the young hitters and for, you know,
05:06take a little weight off their shoulders to get some veteran guys in the middle of the lineup and,
05:11you know, kind of attack the bullpen with some good power arms that we think that can control
05:16the back end of the game. And it seems like, to me, you'd have to be excited about flipping a
05:20reliever, even a good one in Robert Garcia, out west to get an everyday first baseman, Nathaniel
05:26Lowe. That does not happen very often. It seems like Michael Sirocco is off to a great start,
05:31could be a flyer that ends up netting you a strong reward, but was that kind of the philosophy, like,
05:36let's get creative here, or were there other guys that you tried to make a push for in terms of the
05:42big money? Because I'll just say for me personally, I thought this was an offseason where maybe
05:46you guys start spending even more than you did. Baseball Ops does a really good job of
05:50filling this roster out, but are we still a year away from that, or is that a case-by-case thing?
05:54You know, I think that's an organic thing. You know, everyone mentions the Werth thing,
05:58the Werth thing. Well, the Werth thing happened organically. He was a guy that we felt at that
06:02time we needed to learn how to win, we needed a veteran presence in the clubhouse, and we went
06:10out and got ourselves a really good player that filled a lot of voids that we needed to fill on
06:16the roster. Now, this year we took a look at the whole landscape, and where we're at in the rebuild,
06:26if you will, to become a championship-caliber club again, the draft pick was important for us.
06:34The second-round pick and the international money is where we think we're going to make our hay and
06:40grow. So it was going to take a special fit for us to go after that type of player, pay a top
06:49dollar for them, and to give up a draft pick and international money. So none of those players
06:55that we went after kind of filled all those voids for us, and we decided to go.
07:02At first base, we went with a guy that's a 27-year-old, 28-year-old guy with a silver slugger,
07:09a gold glove, and a world championship. So we felt that that was a better choice
07:14for us this year than going out and getting a guy that costs a lot of money,
07:19multi-years, and a draft pick and some international money. So that was a decision
07:24that we discussed and we made, and we think that we like where it ended up
07:30at the end of the winter. The big addition this year in the rotation, Mike Sirocco, last year he
07:35struggled as a starter, did well out of the pen. What did you guys see that made you think he'd be
07:39a starter? And obviously in spring training, he looked fantastic. Well, spring training, spring
07:42training, I'll always remind everybody, but he's got great stuff. He's got great stuff,
07:47and the thing that most impressed me about him was when we met with him, he's a
07:55big-time competitor, man. He really gets after it, and I remember in his brave days,
08:00I did all the research on him when he was with the White Sox in a really tough situation
08:04where he got relegated to the bullpen, took it like a man, and kind of reworked his stuff,
08:12his delivery, and his pitch arsenal, and had a really strong finish. And when we talked to him,
08:18he was so passionate about being with us because we were going to allow him the opportunity to be
08:22a starter. He had a lot of opportunities to go to a lot of different places as a back-end
08:28reliever, and they trusted us enough to come with us with the promise that he's going to get
08:35every opportunity to start. So we're going to do that, and we hope that the stuff continues,
08:42and he pounds the strike zone, and he gets after it like he's been getting after it since the day
08:47he walked in here. Nine strikeouts, one walk in his seven spring innings. I know, just spring
08:52training. You can tell Mike's like, yeah, that's nice. Let's see what he does in April. Mike Rizzo
08:58on Grant and Danny here on your flagship home for the Nats, 106.7 the fans. Stay in the rotation for
09:02a second. Seems like it's a two-horse race for the fifth starter job. You can correct me if I'm
09:06wrong, but Herz and Parker possibly, the other four seem pretty entrenched. Is that fair? Yeah,
09:11I think the four seem entrenched. I think it's, you know, I look at it as a three-man competition,
09:17Parker, Herz, and Sheno. I think they all have good stuff. They pitch differently, but I think
09:23they're all going to help us, you know, throughout this year, but we'll see who's there opening day
09:28and who's not, but it's a good competition between three really talented left-handed pitchers, and
09:35you know, we always talk about the depth. It gives us depth that we've never had before,
09:39and you go with those seven starters, and we've got guys behind them that are ready to
09:47make the jump and impact the team also. Power's been something that this team has kind of
09:51struggled with the last couple of years. You added some power bats. DeYoung's hit a lot of
09:54home runs in his career, Josh Bell as well. Do you feel like you guys have improved that enough
09:58that you're happy with that now? Yeah, we think that, you know, with a couple of the additions
10:02we make, you know, JB can hit some home runs, as can Lowe, as can DeYoung, but you know, we think
10:08that our young core guys are going to facilitate some power also, so you know, we feel good about
10:14the ability to score runs, you know, be it home runs or just be offensively efficient,
10:20but you know, I think that with the young core taking the next step offensively, you add those,
10:27you know, three or four veteran bats, I think that we have improved ourselves. Do you feel like last
10:32year you guys were really aggressive on the base paths? Is that something you want to continue to
10:36do? Obviously, sometimes running into outs was a bit of a problem, but I thought overall you guys
10:40were really aggressive stealing bags. Most steals in baseball, 223 last year. Is that something
10:45that you want to continue to be? Yeah, I think we have to be patiently aggressive. I mean,
10:49we have to be, we have to go first to third, second to home. We have to, you know, balls in
10:53dirt. We have to take the extra 90 feet, stealing bases. I think that's part of our DNA. Davey likes
10:58to manage that way. We've got the skill set of the players on the roster to do so, so I think that,
11:04I think that, you know, for us to go away from that part of our offense would be silly.
11:08We have to be smarter to do it, smarter about it, and the way we do it. You know, you can,
11:13you know, if we, if we limit teams to 27 outs and we don't make outs on, silly outs on the
11:17bases, I think that that's going to just add to the way we compete, the way we win, we win games.
11:23Number one in the sport and steals last year and in caught stealing when you run that happens,
11:28but 73 obviously way too many times getting thrown out on base for Mike Rizzo's liking.
11:33We mentioned the power, trying to build on 135 homers as a team last year,
11:37a guy that can both run and hit James Wood. It just feels like the possibilities for him
11:43are limitless. And maybe it's not this year in his first full year in the majors, but what have
11:48you seen from him this spring? I mean, he seems like the guy that's going to put some butts in
11:52seats this year and really give people something to watch. Yeah. He's a, he's a special player.
11:56You know, he's got a, he's got a full tool bag and you know, he's, you know, he can hit and he
12:00hit with power and he's, he's working so hard on making the adjustment to left field on defense.
12:07He runs the bases well, aggressively and smartly. And you know, he's going to be a, he's going to
12:12be a fixture in the middle of the lineup for, for years to come. And you know, when you look at the,
12:17the exciting guys that we have, you know, they're, they're all young kids, you know, 24,
12:22you know, we've got Garcia and Abrams and Cruz and young and, and would they're all young,
12:27you know, 24 or less and just scratching the surface. I think of what they can do as big
12:32leaguers. We're looking forward to a few days of baseball ahead. Good to see you, man. Thanks for
12:36coming by my pleasure guys. Always a pleasure. Mike Rizzo, president of baseball ops with the
12:40nationals on grant and Danny.