Official Nationals and Orioles 2011 Thread

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by 12thMan

Not a big Nats follower, although I live 10 friggin' minutes from the ballpark. But do you guys think there's much, if any, falloff between Riggleman and Johnson?

In what sense? In terms of quality...hell to the no. Johnson is a far better manager in a general sense. We need to remember that Riggleman up until he had taken the Nats job had been an abject failure as a manager. He was regarded as one of the worst managers in the game. But since this team wasn't a team that was in any position to compete regularly he wasn't brought in to manage as much as to watch over and make sure they the younger players had a good environment in which to gain experience. There's little doubt that Rigs was right in teh sense that he wasn't the long term answer at manager. Hence the rolling one-year deals.

Now that the team has shown some cohesion and competitiveness they need to be managed in a competitive way. The question is whether DJ's style will work straight away or whether it will take some time for the players and him to adapt to each other, if ever.