This was an easy decision. Help him out.

More scatterbrained thoughts on the Gore trade and everything going on: Toboni was brought in to clean up a completely mismanaged organization. Not his fault Rizzo and his cigar-smoking dinosaurs put them in this spot. He's doing what he was hired to do. Don't cut corners. Do it completely.

MacKenzie Gore's best season was worse than Josiah Gray's 2023 season. He turns 27 next month. There might not be a 2027 season. He's TEMU Gio Gonzalez, who you all hated. Don't know why people want to turn him into Max Scherzer now. Team was going to suck with or without him. Love the trade.

As much as we deservedly shit on the Lerner family it seems that they are putting their money where their mouth is and letting Toboni staff up. Maybe late-stage Rizzo embarrassed them more than we thought.

When you look at the new Nats POBO's follows on the other site.

I think this hire is the right idea. Take a swing on a young star. Just a matter of if they let him staff up and improve all the lousy infrastructure. I won't pretend to know anything about him, but people's whose input I greatly value seem to be very high on it.

The Athletic GM search story is the first time I have read something about this team and felt optimistic afterward in a long time. I’m all in on Hawkins. A young data nerd from the outside is the way I’d go. You’re also not interviewing guys of that caliber just to promote DeBartolo.

Nonzero chance Mike DeBartolo’s first two draft picks both turn out better than anyone Rizzo has drafted since Anthony Rendon 14 years ago.

Absolute insanity. His agent is swimming in waters that are too deep for him. Peters is embarrassing him and instead of admitting defeat, he's digging in. Don't cave. You control his ass for two years. Make him play this year out then tag him if you need to. In meantime, look for his replacement.

Ribalta has no business pitching in the majors.

Cade Cavalli is why I don’t care about minor league pitching stats. They don’t matter. His stats never made sense when you watched him because the stuff had come back. The samples are too small and the objective isn’t to win the game. All projection with pitchers. He has real stuff.

Can someone just lay these fucking racists out? Just annihilate them?

Yeah that’s the smart move. It’s good for Lowe too. Give him a chance to catch on with someone else. Sometimes it gets you going. See Asdrubal Cabrera getting cut by a bad Rangers team in 2019 and becoming invaluable for the Nats and replacing Dozier.

To me, Young needs to be the odd man out, but I just don't believe they will do it. He's a guy who makes more sense as a 26th guy on a good team than on a team like this. They should trade Young this winter.

I’m going to be so annoyed when they send Hassell down to make room for Crews. We don’t need Jacob Young’s defense on a last-place team. Rotate the other five.

Chase them the fuck out of our city.

For whatever reason, things have just not worked out in DC for Nathaniel Lowe. With a non-tender around the corner, it is time to just cut bait now www.federalbaseball.com/general/8522...

I think you absolutely still have to fire Hickey and Coles. There are two months left in the season. I don't think it's a good look to let this continue on just because "the season is lost anyway." If DeBartolo wants the gig, he needs to assert himself when it comes to this.

Hope we don’t regret keeping Gore. I think the first half of this season will be the highlight of his Baseball-Reference page when it’s all said and done.

I bet at some point in the coming weeks we see Lowe released. He's been bad. You're obviously not going to tender him a contract this winter. Let him get a chance to sign on with a contender and try new things. Garcia at 1B, call up Morales/Chaparro, etc. Lowe serves no purpose anymore.

It's flown under the radar, but Andrew Pinckney slashed .284/.363/.556 in July and is on pace to hit more than 20 homers at Rochester. He obviously doesn't have much of a path to playing time here. Smart organizations make small minor-league trades to offload excess and fill holes. Nats do not.

If we’re serious, Milwaukee is a front office we should be looking to raid. If you’re not gonna spend like you used to on payroll, this is the model.

Mildly surprised Bell didn’t get moved. Not that they would have gotten anything interesting, but figured someone would have bought his hot streak for a couple months as a platoon bat.

Based on the draft and deadline, you can see DeBartolo is more a play the numbers game, acquire more rolls of the dice and build depth guy. Rizzo was always a bet big on one number type in regards to both those areas.

Alex Call gonna end up being their best trade just like Jon Lester in 2021. Hilarious.

This changeup is the real deal.

The Nats got two top-25 prospects from the Dodgers' system for Alex Call.

Good. Always liked the guy, but we don't really have a use for him. Would rather have Hassell on the roster. Call is the type of guy the Dodgers will make good use of.

Josh Bell seems like a 5:59 p.m. trade for a 28-year-old AAA reliever, but I want to see if Mikey D can do something else interesting.

Randall looks like an intriguing pickup. Converted catcher so somewhat of a project. Best K/BB ratio in Tigers system among qualified pitchers. Was a top-100 pick last year. Seems like more a heavy sinker guy who doesn't walk guys. Was just promoted to High-A, where he had an excellent debut.

Finnegan had such a weird run here. Objectively one of the best closers in Nats history but also plenty of ghastly blown saves and never pitched in a game of consequence. Fun story though and seemed like a great dude. Hope he does well in Detroit.

By the way, thinking of Christian Franklin and backup outfielders, you may not realize Robert Hassell III has had his best stretch as a professional ballplayer since going back to AAA. .341/.439/.473 in July. The walks are good to see. Weird he never did w/ Nats b/c it's not really a weakness of his

We'll see what today brings, but so far I have been impressed with Mike DeBartolo's handling of the Draft and Trade Deadline. Obviously takes years to really know, but I like the processes. He was put in a tough spot. Do I want to just give him the full-time gig? No. But he seems sharp.

Per Rosenthal: “Washington Nationals All-Star left-hander MacKenzie Gore is another starter attracting serious interest. Whether the Nats are willing to move him under interim GM Mike DeBartolo is unclear.”

Gore is mad at the ump because he realizes he's now relegated to playing two and a half more seasons for the Nationals.

Interesting that they’re gonna use him as a starter. He’s 26. Don’t think they’re gonna unlock anything, but sure.

No chance of a Gore trade at this point. He's been kind of ass for a while now. The first two months of the season look like an outlier. Reevaluate in the winter.

Eder was a touted prospect at one point, but has never turned his talent into anything. Probably won't hear from him again, but he's talented. And he has been in two organizations that make the Nats look like the Dodgers.

Getting anything back for a waiver pickup who was here a couple weeks is something.

Don't know if it was a planned short game, but Dylan Crews was hit by a pitch in his first rehab game and removed from the game after four innings. Doesn't seem ideal.

It shouldn't matter so much, but I think I would have a lot better of a feel for the future if I had a better idea what exactly we have in Dylan Crews. He's not as bad as he was at his worst early this season, but I still don't know how good he actually is. Is he a legit third piece w/ Wood/Abrams?

Any path to competing in the near future involved Sykora getting to the majors as an All-Star caliber pitcher in the next year or two. TJ in July is brutal. Wipes out two seasons. To me, I’m now all in for moving Gore and resetting completely. Abrams too. What a terrible season this has been.

Really the most under-the-radar guy in the system. He walks a lot, strikes out a decent but not alarming amount, runs very well. He's age-appropriate for his level. Hits the ball hard. Major knock is he's COF only. We probably should be talking more about him.

I too think they should look to move Jacob Young.

I was thinking the other day that it seems like something maybe is clicking finally. He’s basically the same age as a college sophomore/junior and we’d be happy if a college draft pick was putting these numbers up. So let’s see. Would be a nice development.

Kiley McDaniel and Keith Law both praised the Nats' draft haul. Not something we've seen very often.

This is unwatchable. Just have no feel for what’s actually happening. Can’t appreciate any of the home runs.

Nats 12th-rounder, LHP Ben Moore, ranked in MLB and Baseball America's top 250. Big lefty from ODU who was a really good reliever but struggled being moved to starter this year, so question is if he will start or fast-track as a reliever. I imagine he gets a chance to be a starter.

Nats 11th-rounder Jack Moroknek sounds like an analytics-friendly pick. Baseball America ranks him 396th and says "Moroknek mustered a 109.4 mph 90th percentile exit velocity and plenty of extra-base damage. There might be even more damage lurking if a big league team could help him to limit chase."

The Nats went cheap college seniors with five straight picks. If you guestimate bonuses so far: Willits - 8.3 Petry - 1.8 Harmon - 2.5 Sime - 1.5 James - 2.0 Round 6-10 - ~100K That would leave them around a million to play with in the final 10 rounds with only amount >$150K counting.