Nationals GM Mike Rizzo Expects to Retain Manager Davey Martinez for 2019 Season

Washington Nationals general manager and president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo sees manager Davey Martinez as part of the team in 2019 despite what has been a massively disappointing 2018 campaign.

"I haven't considered any other scenario," Rizzo said Wednesday when asked whether Martinez would return for next season, per MASN's Mark Zuckerman. 

Rizzo added he doesn't plan on executing a full-scale rebuild in the offseason.

"The core is in place to have a championship club," he said, per Zuckerman.

Granted, some of Rizzo's belief may hinge on whether the Nationals re-sign Bryce Harper, who's a free agent in the winter. Although he's Washington's only big star headed for free agency, he'd leave a big hole in the lineup if he were to sign elsewhere.

Regarding Martinez, there's only so much blame to place on a manager for a team that has encountered as much bad luck as the Nationals have.

According to Baseball Prospectus, Washington has a .549 third-order winning percentage, which would put the team at 76 wins and right in the National League playoff hunt. Nationals relievers are also 26th in FIP (4.48), per FanGraphs. Yadier Molina's two-out, two-strike grand slam in the top of the ninth in Tuesday night's 11-8 Washington loss to the St. Louis Cardinals sums up the bullpen's fortunes this year.

Martinez may have a hand in the team's failure to close out games, though.

"Martinez's ability to handle a pitching staff emerged as the primary concern in the Nationals clubhouse in the first part of this season, according to on- and off-the-record conversations with players and those familiar with this team’s inner workings," the Washington Post's Chelsea Janes reported in July.

Specifically, Nationals players were worried Martinez was pushing the relievers too hard.

The Washington Post's Barry Svrluga also questioned whether Martinez was capably handling the team in the clubhouse, highlighting the trade of Brandon Kintzler as an example of the team going out of its way to show support for the manager and send a message. According to Svrluga, the team dealt Kintzler because "he had been too critical of the club’s inner workings and clubhouse culture."

With the season still going on, Rizzo has little reason to undermine Martinez's position by allowing for the possibility he could be out of a job in the offseason.

Firing Martinez after just one year would be a surprising move, but it wouldn't be too hard in seeing the Nationals' justification for doing so with how much things have unraveled so quickly.