“It is by no means on teaching,” Martinez mentioned. “It is by no means on teaching. Coaches work their a**** off each single day. We’re not going to finger-point right here and say it is on the coaches. They work arduous.”
After saying he had performed the sport a very long time and by no means blamed a coach, he continued defending the workforce’s teaching workers and put the blame on the gamers.
“Generally you bought to place the onus on the gamers,” Martinez mentioned. “They bought to go on the market they usually bought to play the sport. And play the sport the suitable manner. We will not hit for them. We will not catch the balls for them. We will not pitch for them. We will not throw strikes for them. They bought to try this.”
There’s a lot to unpack from all of that.
First, no one was truly placing the blame on the coaches. It was a easy query from a reporter as as to whether it ought to be on the gamers or the coaches. Martinez then turned it right into a passionate protection of the teaching workers, whereas throwing the gamers below the bus (after saying they weren’t going to level fingers).
Second, Martinez is not totally incorrect with what he is saying.
It does come right down to the gamers. The coaches cannot pitch, hit or area for them. However even when that’s the case, it is not one thing a supervisor can say out loud. It isn’t one thing a supervisor can say out loud when the workforce is 30-40 and when the workforce (below this present supervisor) has not had a profitable season in six years.
It is a matter of accountability.
And a supervisor who isn’t keen to take any accountability and is as a substitute very happy to throw his gamers below the bus is a supervisor who’s rapidly going to lose the respect of his locker room.
If he hasn’t already.
It isn’t simply that he put the onus on the gamers to play higher. That alone might be acceptable. It is the large leagues and everyone is extremely compensated and open to criticism, particularly when they don’t seem to be performing. It is that he put the onus on the gamers and completely refused to place any on his teaching workers or himself, and as a substitute backed them up utterly.
The Nationals’ roster isn’t significantly good proper now, and there in all probability isn’t a supervisor who’s going to show that group of gamers right into a winner. That additionally has to fall on the overall supervisor and entrance workplace for assembling such a flawed and unhealthy roster.
If you find yourself a workforce as unhealthy because the Nationals, no one will get to flee blame for it. That is not the view of Martinez, the place everyone else will get the blame aside from him and his teaching workers, simply because they work arduous.