The Baseball Thread

*yawn* 

With today's victory by BALTIMORE the season series ends tied at 3-3.

Much to do about nothing by Nats fans.

I think you mean "much ado about nothing". (?)

StoneTheCrow wrote:
With today's victory by BALTIMORE the season series ends tied at 3-3.

Much to do about nothing by Nats fans.

::)

Yes, that's what I meant.

here's an update, from those of us still grounded in reality: both teams suck.

sweetcell wrote:
here's an update, from those of us still grounded in reality: both teams suck.

Nats look a lot better this year.. they've lost a lot of 1 run games, have become a much better fielding team, and have been missing arguably their best hitter all season..


They also just won 8 games in a row including sweeping the cards. Hardly the definition of "suck"

After today's game, Orioles pitchers are now 7 for 13 from the plate on the season. Maybe they should just let them hit all the time.

sweetcell wrote:
here's an update, from those of us still grounded in reality: both teams suck.

here's an update, from those of us still grounded in reality: Nats at 500.

You can tell when whOrioles fans are at Nationals Park. The place becomes a sea of bad ink.

Riggleman quit??? 

Riggleman quits as Nationals manager
By Washington Post editors
Jim Riggleman has resigned as manager of the Washington Nationals. Rigglman told General Manager Mike Rizzo that he would resigne before the game if his contract situation was not resolved.

?Jim told me pregame today that if we wouldn?t pick up his [contract] option that he wouldn?t get on the team bus today,? Rizzo said at a news conference after the Nationals defeated the Seattle Mariners 1-0, lifting the team to a winning record.

Unbelievable..who quits mid contract.. ? I've never heard of that happening when you're winning…
Had he kept winning he'd have gotten his extension and a nice raise


seems unprofessional to me…. but who knows

hutch wrote:
Had he kept winning he'd have gotten his extension and a nice raise

How do you know this?

The guy wins 11 games in a row and they won't even talk to him about his option.  If not then, when?  He'll never coach again, but I don't think anyone will take a one year deal from the Nationals again either, let alone 3 of them.

vansmack wrote:

hutch wrote:
Had he kept winning he'd have gotten his extension and a nice raise

How do you know this?

The guy wins 11 games in a row and they won't even talk to him about his option.  If not then, when?  He'll never coach again, but I don't think anyone will take a one year deal from the Nationals again either, let alone 3 of them.

First of all he had a contract he wilingly signed! He basically bailed on his contract!

I think if he'd kept winning the pressure on the team to retain his services- at worse- would have led to him being rehired.. at best Rizzo/Lerners would have concluded he was a good manager.. Lets face it : if the Nats had finished over 500 he'd have been a contender for Manager of the Year.. those guys don't usually get let go..


Moreover, its just plain terrible to leave your team in a ditch like that….someone else summed it up on a baseball board;


I'd like to know who has the true story.

Mike Rizzo is saying Riggleman gave him an ultimatum while Riggleman is saying Rizzo wouldn?t even have a conversation about the contract situation with him.

But it still doesn?t change the fact that fault lies with both men. BUT more fault lies with Jim Riggleman. Rizzo is the GM and Riggleman is the manager. Rizzo evaluates his employees while Riggs manages the Nats. If Riggs did a good job leading this team the rest of the season then he will be rewarded with the contract after the season. Just because Rizzo didn?t want to talk to Riggs about the contract doesn?t mean he didn?t want him back. But Riggs took it as the Nats didn?t want him. You have to go through trials and tribulations to get what you want. You earn what you achieve. Even if Riggleman felt like he was being wronged, don?t you as a man need to just stick it out to the end? This is a contract situation and it has NOTHING to do with the poor players. These guys battled and fought hard for him all year long, and he just walks out on them? The bottom line is you do not walk out on your players in the middle of the season just because you?re not getting what you want. It?s about the team, not you.

by rachel216 on Jun 23, 2011 6:02 PM EDT reply   

before the nats won 11 of 12 i was not convinced they should retain riggleman.. one winning streak did not change my mind


if I were Rizzo I wouldn't have in good conscience been able to tell him more than "if you guys keep winning you better bet your bottom dollar we'll give you a multi year contract".. but I wouldn't have guaranteed that based on one winning streak!

Don't misconstrue what I'm saying.  I'm not defending Riggs' action, but I think it's wrong that everyone keeps blaming him for this.

How many managers in baseball have had 3 consecutive one year deals?  Only Riggleman knows what that's like.  Nobody knows better than he did if he was ever going to get a long term deal and he knew that AT BEST he was going to get one more deal of one year IF the Nats exercised the option.  It wasn't like Rizzo said "Hey Riggs, we're working on a long term deal, in the meantime, we'll exercise this option."  The Nats wouldn't even commit to the option, which didn't include a raise. Maybe the mental anguish was too much, maybe he just had enough - job security means a lot when there's that much scrutiny at your position.  And frankly, I can't blame him really.  Should he have have gone about it differently? perhaps.  But the end result?  Makes a little bit of sense to me.

And don't give me this contract crap and walking out on the players.  I'm sure Riggleman could rattle off the names of two dozen players that were under contract FOR HIS TEAM that put themselves before everyone else and held out at one time or a another.  This time it just happened to be a manager….   

interesting

"Riggleman focused on himself by quitting when there are three months left in the season, when the team is hot and improving and when he was still under contract for the rest of 2011. Keep winning and keep nurturing the club's less experienced players (Ian Desmond, Danny Espinosa, Roger Bernardina, Jordan Zimmermann, et al.) and the contract situation would have resolved itself."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/joe_lemire/06/23/riggleman.leaving.nationals/index.html?sct=hp_t2_a6&eref=sihp

vansmack wrote:

hutch wrote:
Had he kept winning he'd have gotten his extension and a nice raise

How do you know this?

The guy wins 11 games in a row and they won't even talk to him about his option.  If not then, when?  He'll never coach again, but I don't think anyone will take a one year deal from the Nationals again either, let alone 3 of them.

Jim Riggleman is fucking lucky he wasn't fire three weeks ago when the team was the second worst in the NL. In fact, I bet Riggleman doesn't even get the liquid courage to approach Rizzo without this streak. What was he gonna tell Rizzo? "I'm the second worst career manager in the bigs with the second worst team in the NL. I DEMAND AN EXTENSION!" Give me a fucking break.

If the team stays in the playoff hunt and misses the playoffs late in September, he's coming back. Yeah, his contract sucked and he was fucking BITTER all season but he had a golden opportunity to write his own ticket.

I liked Riggleman as a person, but wasn't a huge fan of his managing. He straight up overplayed his hand, got all fucking emotional, did something stupid like throw down an ultimatum, and it got him exactly what he wanted. He didn't want to fucking manage for the Lerners under that contract, no matter how well they were playing.

Extremely disappointed in Jim Riggleman tonight. I thought he knew better than that.

lagas wrote:
interesting

"Riggleman focused on himself by quitting when there are three months left in the season, when the team is hot and improving and when he was still under contract for the rest of 2011. Keep winning and keep nurturing the club's less experienced players (Ian Desmond, Danny Espinosa, Roger Bernardina, Jordan Zimmermann, et al.) and the contract situation would have resolved itself."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/joe_lemire/06/23/riggleman.leaving.nationals/index.html?sct=hp_t2_a6&eref=sihp

The same guy also said this:

Admittedly, Riggleman was reportedly only receiving $600,000 in compensation – believed to be the majors' smallest managerial contract now that the Marlins' Edwin Rodriguez had already resigned – could have been perceived as a small slight. The Nationals' reluctance to extend Riggleman or negotiate a longer-term deal despite the club's short-term on-field improvement also suggests that they had designs on someone else to take the team to the next level. If true, that shows a lack of loyalty, especially after Rizzo complimented the team's play under Riggleman last week.

the more i think about this the more stupid riggleman seems…


the word is the nats are going to ask team "consultant/adviser" davey johnson to take over… i been following baseball for decades and to me thats an upgrade so i hope its true…