A digression: Heard a funny joke this morning. An elderly lady sells pretzels on a New York City street corner for $1. She has been doing this for years. A young man walks by her stand every morning on the way to work, and gives her $1, but doesn’t take a pretzel. He never says anything to her, and she never says anything to him. But he has been doing this for several years. One day he walks about her corner, takes a dollar out of his pocket, and lays it on her counter. She looks at him and says something for the first time: “the pretzels are now $1.25; the price has gone up”. End of digression.

Do you know who Paul Toboni is? Maybe not. Paul Toboni is the new (less than a year) general manager of the Washington Nationals.

I have this to say about Paul Toboni. For a while now, I have been convinced that the worst deal maker in the world is the former New York City real estate mogul and TV star Donald Trump, but now I think that I may be wrong. Donald Trump may be a genius when compared with Paul Toboni.

Going into the the halfway point of the 2026 MLB season, Toboni’s Nationals were playing .500 ball, winning and losing about the same number of games. This was unexpected, as the Nationals are such a young team and in the middle of a much-too-long rebuild. And they were doing this in a unique way – they were the team with the best offense (batting average, runs scored, home runs, etc.) of the 30 MLB teams (that’s how they won half of their games), with a pitching record that stood at 27th of the 30 teams (that’s how they lost half of their games).

It was obvious that, to be contenders, they needed to improve their pitching drastically, but because they were such a young team, they seemed to have a little time to do that.

August 3 (just ten days ago) was the MLB 2026 trade deadline. All trades for the year had to be completed by that date. No one knew what the Nationals were going to do. But the assumption was that they were looking for pitching and would not be trading any of their offense unless they could obtain pitchers who would be worth the price. For good pitchers, some of their offense might be expendable, because they had hitters, and power hitters, in abundance.

By sad coincidence, the week before the trade deadline saw the Nationals play two of the best teams in the league, the division leading Atlanta Braves and the always dangerous Philadelphia Phillies. The week proved a disaster for the Nationals. I think that was in part because the young team (no position player was over 29) was just plain nervous, not know what was going to happen to this offensive machine that they had built together. And, before the trade deadline passed, three Nats were traded away.

The first trade (with the Red Sox), infielder Curtis Mead for pitcher Connelly Early might have been a good trade. Mead was a surprise fan favorite and doing well, but was not going to be more than a platooned player, and Early is a young pitcher with a very promising future. It looked like each team got what they needed. (As an aside, Early has been on the Injured List with an inflamed elbow, and has yet to pitch, and Mead suffered a finger stress fracture in his first – and so far only – game with the Red Sox.)

A second trade was with the Cleveland Guardians.  The Nationals picked up three pitching prospects:  Josh Hartle, Will Dion, and Kendeglys Virguez, and an outfielder whom they didn’t seem to need, Nick Mitchell. They gave up their only All-Star pitcher, Foster Griffin, whose won-loss record was 12-3. What was the argument that this was a good deal for the Nationals? Griffin, who was signed by the club after he pitched in Japan the last three years, is 31 years old (old for the Nationals) and was signed to a one year contract only, which meant that he would have been free to go anywhere he wanted after the year ended and (as the Nationals’ ownership is so tight-fisted) some team would have probably seriously outbid the Nationals if they tried to keep him. So by trading him now, they got something in return. If they waited until the fall, they would just have lost him.

One of the new Nats pitchers, Will Dion, who is 26, is on the Nats’ current roster and has pitched three innings in relief and done well. The most touted of the three pitchers, 23 year old (6’6″) Josh Hartle, has yet to make the majors, nor has the other, 22 year old Kenderglys Virguez. The outfielder, 22 year old Nick Mitchell, probably (my guess) will never see the majors.

But the assumption was, with Griffin probably leaving at season end, the Nationals did well getting Hartle for the future and Dion to help with the bull pen today.

So, that too may be a good trade, although losing both Griffin and Mead was clearly a blow to team spirit and morale.

But then there was trade three, where Toboni traded second baseman Luis Garcia, Jr to the Yankees, this time for four (not three) pitchers of dubious quality. Garcia is only 26, has been with the Nationals organization for close to a decade, was hitting .283, had 23 home runs and 76 RBIs, and was leading the National League in slugging percentage. He will immediately be a star for a Yankee club that already has more than its share of stars. It was probably a long-run great move for Garcia (but unexpected), bringing him back to his home town of the Bronx. But for the Nationals?

Yovanny Cruz is in his first Major League season at age 26 (almost 27), and has pitched in a few Nats games, with decidedly mixed results. Yesterday, against the Cubs, he got one batter out, walked one, and allowed two hits, and two earned runs. Jack Bird is older than Cruz (30) and has been a regular Major League reliever since 2022. His record has been far from outstanding, with an over all ERA (earned run average, per game) of 4.89. What do we think he will bring to the Nats? Jack Cebert is a 24 year old prospect with potential upside, but little experience over last year and this, none of it overly impressive. Ben Grable, also 24, has probably the best upside of the four, getting very strong reviews from the Scouts. Cebert and Grable are still in the minors, and whether either will see a Nats uniform this year is not clear.

So maybe one day Cebert and Grable will make the Garcia deal look brilliant. But that day is not near, and what the trade has done to prospects for this year, and to team and fan morale is disastrous.

And this is especially true, because your can look at other major league stars, Harper, Turner, Schwarber, Scherzer, Soto and more, all former Nats.

So it is same old, same old in DC. Over the past two days, the Nats have lost twice to the Cubs, 8 to 6, and 12 to 6. When you score 6 runs, you are supposed to win. Losing with great offense is what led to these three trades. Nothing seems to have changed. And we are tired of it.