It was a wild night at Nationals Park – and, no, they weren’t playing baseball. Instead, the entire front office was huddled in the third-floor offices finalizing a deal with top draft pick Stephen Strasburg. Meanwhile, a dozen or so reporters were on the sixth floor waiting…and waiting…and waiting.
Finally, at 11:58 and 43 seconds (team president Stan Kasten was keeping careful track) the team learned that Strasburg had accepted the team’s offer of about $15.1 million. It set off a jubilant celebration. Principal owner Ted Lerner, 83, was there all day – from 9 a.m. until the announcement was made. His son, Mark Lerner, and the organization’s entire board was on hand. Not to mention the baseball staffers who make these deals happen. As he walked out of a post-midnight chat with reporters, acting general manager Mike Rizzo was positively giddy. The contrast between Monday night and deadline day last August – when pitcher Aaron Crow rejected the team’s final offer – was hard to miss. One day was a funeral. The other, a party.
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“There was back and forth throughout the day, we started early in the morning,” Rizzo said. “The group of us got together at 9 in the morning and we’ve been together throughout the night. It’s been a pretty consistent flow of back-and-forth and, of course, the last couple of hours, and especially the last 45 minutes, the energy level ramps up and it gets a little exciting.”
The exchanges get a little heated in those final minutes. Who is the loudest yeller?: “There was No. 1 [screamer in the room] and then a distant No. 2 and No. 3. And Stan was No. 1. He was – we call him the maestro behind the scenes, the puppet master, and was the guy in the background with me that really helped guide me through this negoation.”
No one knows exactly what Stephen Strasburg will become. Maybe he turns into just a solid No. 2 starter in the big leagues. Maybe he blows out his arm early on and is never the same. But nights like this are about hope. And that’s something the Nationals have produced so little of in recent years – for their fans, for their players, for the front office itself. Strasburg has the potential – the potential, now – to become one of the game’s best pitchers. That’s his ceiling. No guarantees. But every team in baseball would be willing to roll the dice on him.
