With no news on the state of the 2020 season expected until sometime today, the baseball world was left Sunday with nothing else to do but wax nostalgic and watch a documentary about the breaking of one of the sport's most hallowed records 22 years ago. The Great Home Run Chase of 1998 between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa was beloved by everyone at the time, cringed at now because of the added layer of context we now have for what took place.
Watching it, though, reminded me of the breaking of...
Whatever sliver of hope remained that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association might find a way to come together and negotiate a reasonable settlement to their ongoing fight over salary structure appeared to go up in smoke Saturday night after both entities issued nasty statements accusing each other of ruining any chance of a reasonable 2020 season.
MLBPA executive director Tony Clark all but gave up further negotiations and essentially demanded that Rob Manfred tell the players...
Another week down, another week without resolution to the seemingly important question of: "When will the 2020 Major League Baseball season begin, and how long will it last?" Despite proposals and counter-proposals, the league and the MLB Players Association don't appear to be close to a deal at this point. We can only continue to hope cooler heads will prevail - and soon.
There was baseball news this week, though, in the form of a condensed, five-round draft that began Wednesday night and...
It's day two of the draft, and the Nationals have much more to consider than they did last night when they waited around for their one and only pick (No. 22), which they used on Oklahoma right-hander Cade Cavalli.
Tonight, the Nats will make five selections, one apiece in rounds two through five, plus a compensatory pick after the second round they received for losing Anthony Rendon to free agency. Yep, that's a big one.
The whole thing begins at 5 p.m. with the start of the second round. The...
When they gathered Wednesday night - each individual secluded in his own home - for the first night of this year's draft, Mike Rizzo, Kris Kline and the Nationals scouting department would have been excused if they felt less prepared than they had any previous year they gathered for the first night of the draft.
Nobody had been able to scout anybody in person in three months, which under normal circumstances would be a ludicrous way to try to create a draft board.
Instead, these men insist,...
The Washington Nationals selected five players on the second day of Major League Baseball's 2020 First-Year Player Draft. Nationals President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Mike Rizzo, Assistant General Manager & Vice President of Scouting Operations Kris Kline and Director of Scouting Operations Eddie Longosz made the joint announcement.
The Nationals kicked off Thursday's action by selecting right-handed pitcher Cole Henry out of Louisiana State University in the second...
The Nationals built a contender - and ultimately, a World Series champion - on the strength of an impressive run of first-round draft picks who developed into superstars.
Ryan Zimmerman. Stephen Strasburg. Anthony Rendon. Bryce Harper and Drew Storen (aside from the champion part). All were top-10 selections during the Nats' first seven drafts. All had a hand in the franchise's ascension. The first three had a major hand in the franchise's title run.
But if they want to continue this run of...
The Washington Nationals selected right-handed pitcher Cade Cavalli out of the University of Oklahoma with the No. 22 selection in the 2020 First-Year Player Draft. Nationals President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Mike Rizzo, Assistant General Manager & Vice President of Scouting Operations Kris Kline and Director of Scouting Operations Eddie Longosz made the joint announcement.
Cavalli, a 6-foot-4, 226-pound junior went 1-2 with a 4.18 ERA (11 ER/23.2 IP) and 37 strikeouts...
There are problems with Major League Baseball's economics system. Big problems.
Yes, the sport brings in as much as $11 billion a year, but that doesn't mean the economic state of the sport is healthy.
Players have been making this argument for two years now. How can owners be making so much money while free agency remains stagnant? How can so many teams be profitable while still claiming they need to cut payroll as part of a long-term rebuilding plan? And how can the best players in this...
Four individuals whose contributions elevated basketball in distinctive ways and two legendary coaches, one immortalized in a film and one etched into history with two World Cup titles, plus two teams that each won their first-ever championship in 2019 are among those selected for induction into the Washington DC Sports Hall of Fame.
The formal induction into the DC Sports Hall of Fame is conducted at Nationals Park prior to a Washington Nationals game. Due to the postponement of Major League...
It's almost impossible to refer to any game or any player in baseball history as unique. Over the last century and a half, this great sport has seen pretty much everything that can happen, happen.
Yes, there have been countless remarkable, memorable, even historic moments and players. But in nearly every case, they can be compared to something or someone else. Rarely do we get to witness something and say with 100 percent conviction: "Wow, we've never seen anything like that before!"
If you...
The Nationals are wrapping up a homestand this afternoon, with the fourth and final game of their series against the Mets on tap, a marquee pitching matchup between Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom set for this warm afternoon on South Capitol Street.
This is an important stretch of the season to date for the Nats, who through 64 games find themselves in the driver's seat of a competitive race in the National League East. They're in first place at 39-25, with the Braves trying to catch them at...
And so the end of another week is upon us, the 12th such week since we last had baseball players doing baseball things on a baseball field. It's hard to believe that much time has passed, and it's hard to believe there is still no agreed-upon plan for bringing the sport back.
Obviously, there are more important issues in the world right now than baseball, and our heads and our hearts need to remain focused on those issues. But it's also OK to care about baseball right now. It's what...
Precisely 12 weeks have passed since Major League Baseball shut down spring training and delayed the start of the regular season, the novel coronavirus having forced the entire nation to shut down like never before.
Nobody knew at that moment how much time would pass before baseball could be played again, but slowly it became clear the target date for starting a condensed 2020 season would fall right around July 4.
Which meant teams would need to be able to start holding workouts for a second...
Was any postseason retrospective ever more aptly titled than "Improbable"? The look back at the Nationals' 2019 playoff run re-aired on MASN recently, reminding us just how odds-defying the team's climb to the top was. Battling back to a playoff berth after teetering on the edge of oblivion in May, the Nats then had to come back against a dominant closer to win the wild card, survive two elimination games in the National League Division Series - coming back from a three-run deficit late in...
Following the trend initiated by a few Major League Baseball clubs over the weekend and echoed by many more franchises throughout the day, the Nationals issued a statement late Tuesday in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the charging of police officer Derek Chauvin with third-degree murder and manslaughter, and the protests that have taken place across the country in the aftermath.
The statement was attributed to the Nationals' Founding Partners Group, which consists of...
It's hard to look at the competing proposals for the 2020 season offered up by Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association and come to the conclusion that the two sides are anywhere close to striking a deal.
But here's a key point that must be taken into consideration when trying to gauge the state of negotiations: Both sides are purposely making proposals that fall at the extreme ends of their acceptable spectrums. Not because anyone believes the opposing side is going to accept...
One day after learning their own major league players had pledged to cover the pay cuts the organization was imposing on minor leaguers, Nationals ownership reversed course and elected to continue making full weekly stipend payments to their players, a source familiar with the decision confirmed.
The Nationals' intention to reduce the stipends given to minor leaguers from $400 per week to $300 per week throughout June was immediately met with a harsh reaction from the franchise's own big...
Nationals players, after learning Sunday the organization is cutting minor leaguers' weekly pay this month, have collectively pledged to cover the difference on their own.
The club, which by Major League Baseball mandate had been paying all minor leaguers $400 per week throughout April and May, will reduce that amount to $300 per week in June, a source familiar with the decision confirmed. The reductions come as the organization also released more than two dozen minor league players, a trend...
It all seems so trivial right now, doesn't it, the bickering between Major League Baseball and its players over how to fairly set salaries for the 2020 season?
Our country is coming apart at the seams, protests and riots consuming cities across America over an issue that has plagued this land of ours for centuries and has now reached a boiling point. All of this, mind you, against the backdrop of a global pandemic and collapsed economy.
We're supposed to care about baseball right now?
But...



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