We've reached the final week of the year, so it's time to look back at the Nationals' most significant stories of 2025. We conclude the series today with the decision to fire both Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez in early July ...
A Nationals franchise that experienced seemingly constant change through its first decade-plus in the District had become one of the most stable organizations in baseball during its second decade in town. After swapping one manager for another every two or three years, the Nats finally stuck with Davey Martinez for more than seven years. After a chaotic run under Jim Bowden, they promoted Mike Rizzo to general manager in 2009 and kept him at the helm for more than 16 years.
That’s what made the events of July 6 so stunning. Not because pressure wasn’t already building on Rizzo and Martinez in Year Four of a rebuild that hadn’t come close to producing a winning record. But because the all-important question always lingered over the whole enterprise: Would ownership actually make those kind of major decisions on two loyal, longtime employees who brought the city its first World Series title in 95 years?
Ownership not only did make those decisions. It made them in season, and in conjunction.
After the Nationals took a 6-4 loss to the Red Sox on July 6 to complete an uninspired weekend sweep, managing principal owner Mark Lerner and Lerner Sports Group COO Alan Gottlieb informed both Rizzo and Martinez they were being fired, then stood in the home clubhouse at Nationals Park and informed the rest of the team what had just taken place.
“Our family is eternally grateful for their years of dedication to the organization, including their roles in bringing a World Series trophy to Washington, D.C.,” Lerner wrote in a statement released by the club later that evening. “While we are appreciative of their past successes, the on-field performance has not been where we or our fans expect it to be. This is a pivotal time for our club, and we believe a fresh approach and new energy is the best course of action for our team moving forward.”
Either of the firings individually would have constituted the Nationals’ most significant decision in a long time. Together, they might well have represented the most significant decision in team history.
Rizzo left an unmatched imprint on the organization. The first employee the Lerner family hired after taking ownership of the team from Major League Baseball in 2006, the former Diamondbacks scouting director became Bowden’s second-in-command before ascending to the top position in baseball operations three years later.
He inherited a 100-loss team with a weak farm system. He proceeded to build it into a four-time division champion loaded with elite players, many of them drafted and developed from within, some of them acquired via shrewd trades, a few of them signed as free agents.
Rizzo drafted Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon, Jordan Zimmermann, Drew Storen, Michael A. Taylor and Danny Espinosa. He traded for Trea Turner, Wilson Ramos, Gio Gonzalez, Howie Kendrick, Adam Eaton, Michael Morse, Denard Span, Doug Fister, Sean Doolittle, Daniel Hudson and Mark Melancon. He signed Jayson Werth, Max Scherzer, Adam LaRoche, Daniel Murphy, Patrick Corbin and Anibal Sanchez, not to mention Ryan Zimmerman to multiple extensions.
And then he was given an opportunity not often afforded to baseball executives: To tear down a championship roster and attempt to rebuild a new one. That process included one of the boldest trades in sports history, with a 23-year-old potential Hall of Famer dealt in exchange for five prospects (three of which have since become All-Stars).
Martinez, meanwhile, was hired with a daunting mandate: Guide a team that kept reaching the postseason but losing in the first round in devastating fashion to long-desired October glory. And after he pulled off that feat in his second year on the job, he also was given the opportunity to oversee a teardown and rebuild, hoping to guide a completely new roster back to October.
It was a remarkable turn of events for a Nationals franchise that had never retained any previous manager for more than 2 1/2 seasons. Martinez reached his eighth season in the dugout, shattering all previous club records for wins and games managed.
Both Rizzo and Martinez, though, would ultimately need to oversee completion of the rebuild to remain in their positions any longer. By the time the 2025 season arrived, it seemed clear both men would be judged on the club’s won-loss record for the first time in a while, even if they weren’t necessarily given all the resources they hoped would be at their disposal to make that necessary leap.
The season got off to a disappointing start, with a 13-18 record through the end of April. There was a hint of optimism after a 15-12 May, only the second winning month for this team since 2021. But then it all came crashing down during a 7-19 June that included an 11-game losing streak and a poorly constructed answer by Martinez to a postgame question about the responsibility his coaching staff had in the roster’s struggles.
It would be three more weeks before the moves were actually made, but they weren’t spur-of-the-moment moves. They were in the works for days before it was decided they would be handed down following that July 6 game against Boston, win or lose.
Rizzo, 65, and Martinez, 61, have mostly laid low since their dismissals. Neither has been hired by another organization yet. Neither attended the Winter Meetings earlier this month, the first time Martinez had missed the event since he was Joe Maddon’s bench coach in Chicago nearly a decade ago, the first time Rizzo had missed it since he was an assistant coach at the University of Illinois in 1986.
The Nationals would finish out the season with an interim GM (Mike DeBartolo) and interim manager (Miguel Cairo). They then went completely outside the organization to hire permanent replacements, choosing a president of baseball operations (Paul Toboni) who is 30 years younger than his predecessor and a manager (Blake Butera) who is 28 years younger than his.
The franchise enters 2026 in a completely different place than it entered 2025. The front office and coaching staff have been overhauled. Priorities have shifted. New ideas are being embraced.
But before any of that could happen, the most significant decisions this organization has made in a very long time had to take place, with a double-announcement in July 6 the likes of which the Nationals had never before made.