As part of their 20th anniversary celebration, the Nationals invited a number of former players to attend spring training for a few days a piece and serve as guest instructors. The list included familiar faces who have come back frequently over the years (Ryan Zimmerman, Ian Desmond) and some who hadn’t been back at all since retiring (Drew Storen, Danny Espinosa).
Perhaps the ex-National who drew the most attention in West Palm Beach, though, was Jayson Werth. Because while everyone who showed up this spring made a point to say something to the current team, Werth made a point to really say something. Something that appears to have resonated with everyone who was there to hear it.
Two months later, Werth was back at Nationals Park over the weekend, joining Howie Kendrick for the team’s “Mystery Bobblehead” giveaway. He was asked if he could share anything about his spring training speech, and the 46-year-old former outfielder smiled wide and proceeded to tell the story. It’s a bit convoluted, but it makes sense when you get to the end.
Werth began by telling everyone about a critical moment during his playing career: the summer of 2007, when he was an injury-prone 28-year-old trying to make it with the Phillies after previously playing for the Orioles, Blue Jays and Dodgers. Right around the trade deadline that season, starting outfielders Shane Victorino and Michael Bourn both suffered injuries. That opened a spot in the lineup for Werth, who was just coming off the IL himself.
Philadelphia general manager Pat Gillick pulled Werth aside and told him in no uncertain terms this was going to be his last chance to play full-time in the big leagues.
“Which I thought was incredibly unfair,” Werth recalled over the weekend. “I was coming off an injury. It sucked, but that’s the reality of it. It probably was. It took two guys getting hurt to get there. And I think I got two hits that night, four hits the next night and I don’t come off the field for 11 years.”
Indeed, Werth proceeded to slash .329/.438/.512 over the season’s final 52 games, securing his spot as the Phillies’ starting right fielder. He went on to hit 24 homers in 2008 and help his team win the World Series, then hit a career-high 36 homers in 2009 while helping lead them back to the Fall Classic.
The Nationals, of course, signed Werth to a then-club-record $126 million contract prior to the 2011 season, and he helped them win four division titles during his seven years here. Through it all, he credited Gillick for helping motivate him when he needed it most, at a time when he knew he had to perform or risk never getting another shot.
Fast-forward all the way to May 2024. Werth had long since retired and was now fully invested in his new career in horse racing. Werth’s top horse at the time, Dornoch, had managed to qualify for the Kentucky Derby but finished a disappointing 10th in that race. He was now set to run the Belmont Stakes, and Werth felt the 3-year-old colt needed a pep talk.
So Werth approached Dornoch in the pen, gave him a peppermint – which apparently calms horses down – and looked him square in the eye.
“I grabbed him on his reins and said: ‘This is your last chance in horse racing! If you don’t win this race, you’re never going to be a sire! Your bloodlines will never continue!” he said. “We had dreams of winning the Derby, winning the Triple Crown. Now in the last leg of the Triple Crown, it’s like: Dude, if you don’t win this, this is it. So I told him. I grabbed him: ‘This is your last chance!’ And I told him the story about Pat Gillick and what happened to me.”
Dornoch, of course, went on to win the Belmont Stakes, a life-changing event both for horse and owner.
So when Werth showed up in West Palm Beach in March and thought about what he wanted to say to the 2025 Nationals, he thought about his own baseball career and about Dornoch’s racing career and about the importance of embracing every opportunity you get.
He passed out peppermints to everyone in the clubhouse, and as they all sucked on the candies, he shared the story, getting fired up as he reached the salient point.
“This team, some guys will stay, some guys will go,” he said. “Your career might not be over. You might last for a long time. You could be great players. But this team, it’s their last chance. This is their only chance. … Sometimes you only get one chance, and that’s all you need. This is this team’s one chance.”
The 2025 season is only one-third complete at this point, so it’s too soon to know if the Nationals will have made the most of this one chance. But two months later, Werth’s speech still resonates within the clubhouse.
“There’s no doubt about it,” manager Davey Martinez said. “It was awesome. I can remember getting hit with candy. He had a whole video and everything. It was all about being successful and stuff. It was awesome.
“I love when those guys are around. They understand the game, they’ve been around the game. They have unbelievable stories to share. It’s good for our young players to hear that.”