Former Cubs coach says the perfectly wrong thing as seat heats up

We are about to see how much leash a World Series championship can buy former Chicago Cubs bench coach and current Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez. The Nats’ skipper came into the season on a bit of a hot seat, but his recent comments regarding Washington’s struggles were… ill-advised, to say the least. 

The Nationals have struggled mightily this season, just as they have every year since they won the 2019 World Series. It appears that Martinez is at the end of his rope, considering that when asked about his team’s current slump, he said just about the worst thing possible.

“It’s never on coaching,” the former Chicago Cubs coach and player said after his team’s seventh straight loss, according to the New York Post. “Never on coaching. Coaches work their a***s off every single day. We’re not going to finger-point here and say it’s coaches. It’s never on the coaches. They work hard. The message is clear. All the work is done prior. So, sometimes, they have to go out there and play the game. It’s always been about the players. Always.”

Former Cubs coach Dave Martinez’s latest meltdown is rubbing Nationals players and execs the wrong way

What makes the quote great is that it’s so incredibly wrong on many levels. The “never on coaching” is one of those takes that managers might feel now and then, but shouldn’t ever say aloud.

It’s not just that fans love to blame managers; if you’re a team, you want to ensure the blame is shared, especially among your leaders in the clubhouse. To say it’s never on coaching is just patently false. 

Then, there’s the unsaid accusation here that while the coaches are working hard, the players are not, and thus the Nationals are losing. As if to underline that, he went even further later on in what is quickly becoming an infamous press conference.

“Sometimes you got to put the onus on the players… We can't hit for them. We can't catch the balls for them. We can't pitch for them. We can't throw strikes for them. They got to do that.”

Oof. But wait, it gets worse.

According to The Washington Post’s Andrew Golden, Nationals players are not happy about the comments (for good reason).

Golden said several players were “shocked, dismayed and p—d” by what Martinez said. He also reported that general manager Mike Rizzo and other front office staff were chatting with players, a behavior described as “atypical” for a usual pre-game.

Since going 82-80 in his managerial debut and 93-69 in his second go-round, Dave Martinez has seen his managerial trajectory head the wrong way. The Nationals have now posted five straight losing seasons heading into 2025. They’ve finished over 20 games under .500 in the last four and are already 11 games under this season.

It sure doesn’t feel like the former Chicago Cubs staffer will spend much more time as the manager in the nation’s capital.