Barry Svrluga

But I will say, Tony,

You know, I covered Mike Rizzo for the entirety of his time, and he had some obvious strengths that led to a decade or so of really, you know, for a long stretch there, only the Dodgers won more regular season games, and they ultimately capped it off with a World Series title.

So he had to be doing something right.

This is completely different.

And my first column on the Nationals for –

The athletic is kind of an indicator of how different it is.

Blake Gutierrez has now managed 38 games in the major leagues.

He has run out 32 different lineups, trying to find matchups and combinations, not to make his own guys comfortable.

Oh, I'm the third place hitter.

Oh, I'm the cleanup hitter.

Oh, I hit eighth.

But to...

play out scenarios in how the game might unfold and make sure he's got combinations left right that are best suited for late game matchups against the relievers he's going to face and it just leads to interesting discussions about who hits where and why and it's an indicator that this

Operation has been modernized in one offseason.

James Wood hits leadoff every single night, and then no one knows who's going to hit where after that.

Abrams, the shortstop, is in there pretty much every day.

But yes, he's mixing and matching and trying to win games.

each day, and I think you can see a trickle down in the way this team kind of competes is that they're trying to win each pitch and each at-bat in a way that is, you know, they're not good.

They don't have enough talent to compete with

You know, I know the Mets are off to a terrible start, and I know the Phillies struggled and fired their manager.