Saturday, September 5, 2009

Rizzo Takes Charge

The biggest question in my mind when the Nationals named Mike Rizzo general manager is whether he'd be allowed to really run his own show or whether it would continue as a front office by committee.

Today, we got our first indication that Rizzo's the man. Spin Bobby Williams (all this time I thought "Spin" was Bobby's nickname--who knew they were two different people?), Nationals scouting director since 2006 and one of several holdover members of the Cincinnati posse that came with Jim Bowden, was shown the door today.

I don't have a particularly well informed opinion of Williams. Certainly, the outcomes of the Nationals player development system haven't been good. The disappointments (Ross Detwiler, Jack McGeary, Josh Smoker) seem to far outnumber the nominal successes (Craig Stammen, Jordan Zimmermann).

But the important thing is that this is a sign that Mike Rizzo--unlike Jim Bowden, in fact--will be allowed to run his own show on the baseball operations side. It's a coherence and clarity of leadership that's been sorely missing.

Next on the Cincy mafia hit list: Bob Boone, Squire Galbreath, Darnell Coles, Tim Foli, Debbie Taylor, Ray Knight, and Rob Dibble.

14 comments:

Deez Nats said...

I thought they fired a dude named Bobby Williams and that Spin Williams was the roving pitching instructor for the minors. Is it the same dude?

JayB said...

No...two different dudes.....Steven said he did not have much to add....

Anonymous said...

How could you hate Rob Dibble? He is the only analyst who is rational about the Nats. He is willing to criticize the team when they deserve it and praise them when they deserve it. He should come back next year.

Anonymous said...

It's Bobby Wiliams, not Spin, but he should be next.
Bobby got his job, because he sent a letter to each organization asking for an INTERNSHIP. However his father happens to be the GM for the Orlando Magic. And you know how Jimbo likes his names!
As a coach the front office (other then jim guys) hated the guy. He had no idea what was going on, and was afraid of the players. He was always a 5th coach.
Bout time they started to clean house on jimbo's favor guys. Lets get some people in there that actually know what they are doing!!!

JayB said...

It is hard to believe a guy who never played baseball professionally got his first job as a coach and then Nats made him a manager in VT. Only Jimbo and the Reds and then of course OUR Nats could be run that poorly.

Rizzo does have quite a few more people to purge. I would fire anyone that Jimbo hired pre Stan. Bob Boone too.

test said...

Whether Williams (not Spin) should have been a coach or not, let's look at his pre Nats history. I don't think that was his 1st baseball job.

But he deserved to b e let go. Our minor leaguer successes are more a product of great draft picks and less so develpmental seccesses (R. Zimmerman for instance).

test said...

PS: I assume FJB is joking about Dibble, because clearly Rizzo has no control over MASN. He can limit Dibble's access to the team and players (Dible used to mention sessions working with the Nats' pitchers), but Dibble isn't a Nats employee.

Deez Nats said...

Not sure if any of you are on Twitter, but Dibble (@rdibs49) has seemingly started to block other users that are critical of the Nationals (at least that seem to be the reason he has blocked several of us). For such a tough-talker, he must have some thin skin.

Gus said...

Does anyone know how many pitchers give up an HR in their first major league at bat? Garate just did it, and it feels like it happens more often than you'd expect.

An Briosca Mor said...

There's a guy who back in the day basically did the same kind of write a letter to every team thing and ended up with a low level job with an NFL team. That guy rose to become a Super Bowl-winning GM of that team. His name is Charley Casserly and the team was the Redskins.

Moral of the story is don't disparage a guy just because he's ambitious and aggressive in getting a job. That's unfair. Disparage him or not based on how he performs in the job once he gets it.

Uncle Atom said...

Umm, two N's in Jordan Zimmermann (wag of finger)

Taylor and Dibbs should stay

test said...

@Barry, you'll see I was specifically talking about Ryan "One N" and not Jordan.

Unknown said...

"The disappointments (Ross Detwiler, Jack McGeary, Josh Smoker) seem to far outnumber the nominal successes (Craig Stammen, Jordan Zimmerman)."

@CK- This is directly out of the blog post. Its clearly talking about Jordan Zimmermann, with the last name mis-spelled, and not Ryan Zimmerman. I noticed this as I was reading.

Section 222 said...

Aren't the MASN commentators employed by the Nationals, or at least approved by them? And if so, does Rizzo, or Kasten have the authority to fire/hire?

Dibble has a multi-year contract unfortunately. I would keep Ray Knight. He's goofy, and too much of a homer, but he actually knows alot about baseball and can communicate it. Dibble is high on bluster, and low on useful information and consistency.