Nationals' Stagnant Payroll Causes Front Office, Player Concern

Some Nationals Players Starting To Question Team's Willingness To Increase Payroll

The tone of the members of the Nationals organization "has begun to alter as the club wrings its hands that ownership has not made a single investment in a prime free agent over the last two winters or made an important trade that increased payroll," according to Thomas Boswell of the WASHINGTON POST. The Nationals entered '08 with MLB's 26th-highest payroll, and the budget for '09 "may fall by nearly $20[M] from its current $55[M]." Nationals Owner Ted Lerner said of signing free agents, "This offseason, we're going to give consideration to going to other places we haven't been. But it has to make sense." Boswell writes Lerner was "certainly hinting," but "again not promising." Sources added that the Nationals "are already willing to make trades of the kind that add perhaps [$6-8M] a year to payroll," but bigger signings "have met resistance at the top." Boswell notes the Nationals rank 19th in attendance in MLB, averaging 29,379 fans this season. Lerner said, "We met all our objectives on the realistic numbers. We expected to draw 2.2 to 2.4 million and we'll end up at 2.3 million. We've reduced prices on 7,500 seats for next season. ... It takes time to build a club, but the money we are taking in is not going anywhere but into this team." However, Boswell notes "all around the Lerner family ... are members of the organization who are starting to worry." Boswell: "Not mutiny. Not doubting his family's pledges two years ago to do what was necessary to build a champion. But fretting. A lot. With good reason." The Nationals' future, "which seemed so bright on Opening Night in a new ballpark, has turned progressively darker as this injury-demolished year has dragged toward its end" (WASHINGTON POST, 9/17).