Ian Desmond

Davis, though, after that first season, really struggled.

Um, Ian Desmond is a absolute killer of a contract in an era where the Rockies were competitive enough to find themselves maybe making deep playoff runs.

It was signings like that where you're just like, Why Ian Desmond? And that contract did not work out.

The Nolan Arenado contract was good, right? You extend Nolan Arenado and then you just let him walk because you had a crazy clause in there that would have allowed him to opt out, right? So there was a lot of decision making in these contracts.

We're like, hey, thanks for spending, but brother, what's going on? And then, of course, I haven't even mentioned it yet, the Chris Bryant contract.

And this was, you know, when the Nationals were the division champs.

You know, those years when Harper was there, you know, Laroche was there, Ryan Zimmerman, Mike Morris, Daniel Spinoza, Ian Desmond, you know, Scherzer.

I mean, they were running through that NL East division.

And I walked to the weight room, because we had just gotten chewed about getting, you know, we got beat pretty bad twice.

You look at what he did last year, he was pretty dang good.

A 5.4 B-War season that had been the highest in-- for a national shortstop since I believe Ian Desmond back in the day.

But this year had a negative 0.1 war, led Major League Baseball with 645 at-bats.

His power only hit 19 home runs this season.

And between Galarraga and then Hilton, and then we had Justin Renaud, Michael Goddard, we've had guys who are really, really good defensive players.

And then to have, you know, you've got something to face with a frying pan when you get Daniel Murphy and Ian Desmond in there who can't play the position, is made to play that position, couldn't play it.

um makes you really value those guys who i mean i i've guaranteed to lewiski arenado all those guys sing the praises of all the guys of those guys who played first base 100 i

always love talking to those guys i remember talking to george lewiski and nolan arenado about those guys uh it was helton even when it was more no and mark reynolds and the the

That's why I'm telling the story.

So I walk out there and Ian Desmond's our shortstop at the time.

And the coolest part of the story, and I tell all the guys that make their major league debuts, I tell this story to them all the time.

He comes up to me and says, Hey man, you only get one major league debut.

And it would have just been like a blur because I was in blackout mode.

And, uh, I tell that story all the time.

I'm so grateful for Ian Desmond doing that for me because like, again, it's true.

Like this is, that was a moment I've been waiting for dreaming of my entire life.

And here's a frame of reference for you.

When you think of, like, the best shortstop in Nationals history, it's, like, Ian Desmond and Trea Turner.

My personal, I would probably say Trea Turner because Ian Desmond defensively was kinda similar to, uh, CJ in what Desmond...

Like, both made a lot of errors there.

And Trea Turner was not some exceptional shortstop, but he was a good one.