OPINION:
I was on vacation at the beach when the baseball trading deadline came and went. I didn’t follow it closely, but I had a feeling that the Washington Nationals did something when the carcasses of Nationals fans started washing up on shore.
Pinned to them was a note that read, “Here’s a Nationals fan that really, really wasn’t into it.” It was signed “Paul Toboni, president of the Really Smart Nationals Fan Club.”
When Toboni spoke to reporters after raising the white flag on a surprisingly competitive season, flirting with the National League wild-card race that had seemingly energized a zombified fan base, he spoke to his people when he responded to questions about the surrender, “I think every baseball fan that’s really, really into it understands it.”
This is remarkably arrogant, almost Lerner-like in its dismissal of, let’s face it, most Nationals fans who make a greater personal financial commitment to the baseball team by buying tickets than the owning family does.
I don’t think most of those fans are members of Paul Toboni’s Really Smart Nationals Fan Club. I think they were just baseball fans who wanted to watch their hometown team win or at least have a chance to. And the 2026 Nationals, with their high-powered offense and one particular starting pitcher, were giving the fans just that, in spite of the Lerner family’s miserly ways.
Toboni got a lot of credit for that, energizing the organization with new coaches and player development people committed to his new-age baseball ways and his offseason moves, particularly the signing of pitcher Foster Griffin to a one-year, $5.5 million deal after the former Kansas City first-round pick revived his career in Japan.
But Toboni likely didn’t really believe what he was seeing on the field this year. He is a man of vision, and that vision probably didn’t include winning year one.
When you’re someone who is really, really into it, where’s the fun in that?
So when Washington was swept in four games by the Braves in Atlanta on the brink of the Aug. 3 trading deadline, dropping them to 55-58 — hardly an insurmountable obstacle to overcome in August and September — Toboni jumped on the chance to put all this delusion of winning aside and got down to the business he was hired for.
He traded one of their best hitters, Luis Garcia, and, more damaging, dealt away Griffin, who was on the mound for 15 of those victories and was having an All-Star season with a 12-3 record and a 3.06 ERA.
In return, Toboni got players — seven pitchers and one outfielder, most of them minor leaguers, some so-called prospects — invisible players, the kind of currency that keeps general managers in their jobs. General managers love selling the promise of tomorrow. It’s much easier than selling actual wins.
The decision to trade Griffin wasn’t an easy one. I get that. He will be a free agent after the season ends, and I’m sure when they signed him this winter the Nationals front office that really, really gets it hoped to flip him for invisible players. They accomplished that.
What complicated it was Griffin probably exceeded expectations, like the team did, and his presence represented the feisty, fun Nationals. When he and Garcia (who was still under club control for one more year) were moved, the air went out of the balloon. Washington has gone 5-9 since and fallen to 60-67 as of Wednesday.
Keeping Griffin was an option. It would have required a commitment to winning in this moment of opportunity and losing a chance at the group of invisible players they would obtain for him when he walked away at the end of the season. It would have required some guts.
Of course, Toboni could have signed Griffin to a long-term contract. I’m not sure that would have been a good idea. And I think Toboni would have sooner stuck needles in his eyes than make his first big pitching investment in a 31-year-old who barely throws 90 mph and, like the previous general manager, doesn’t care how fast you throw ball four.
He is not the type of pitcher the Really Smart Nationals Fan Club members fawn over.
The money for such a deal? It’s been ignored for years, sitting out there, waiting for the Lerners to simply reach down and pick it up. They choose not to because they think it’s not enough.
The owners have passed up millions of dollars in ballpark naming rights revenue over 19 seasons, which has been particularly egregious over the last six penny-pinching payroll seasons. According to sources, they have held out for a price higher than the richest rights agreement in baseball — the $20 million annual deal of the New York Mets with Citigroup — still the highest yearly payout despite the 20-year agreement made in 2007.
Hey, it’s not called the Really Smart Nationals Owners Club.
The money for naming rights remains uncollected as superstar shortstop CJ Abrams, having an MVP-type season, has two years remaining until free agency. The Nationals have just moved Abrams to second base — confusing timing.
I’m sure Nationals fans who are really, really into it understand it.
They may soon be the only ones left.
• You can hear Thom Loverro on “The Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast.
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