The big news of the day isn’t the rain in Washington D.C., but something more positive which is manager Dave Martinez is getting a new 3-year deal that will keep him under contract through at least the 2023 season and inline with the same contractual point in time that general manager Mike Rizzo currently has with the team. What that means is the two biggest priorities from the past month is done with Rizzo and Davey tied up.

That moves our morning “Priority List” to a much more succinct list of team off-season priorities. The Nats off-season starts officially after their game goes final on Sunday on September 27th.

For a short season, it has felt long and frustrating, but the last week gave some glimmers of hope that this team is still loaded with talent. General manager Mike Rizzo said the future is bright, and Davey Martinez spoke about the future yesterday in his pre-game and post-game pressers. He joked about how having Juan Soto playing rightfield could get your “imagination” going on what that could mean for next year’s roster.

The Nats having their front office and coaching tied up allows them to concentrate on personnel moves which we have been discussing as the main focus going forward.