StanSpeak: Manny's Out Edition

What the Nats president REALLY thinks

Yesterday's Manny news meant a round of press conferences.  And Nats President Stan Kasten emerged from his Cheney-like subterranean lair to speak.  And, as always, when he speaks, we're here to translate.

The StanSpeak Translator interprets his thoughts and true meanings behind the words he says.  The Translator's additions are in brackets.

On whether the firing means the Nats are starting over:
I do think we're very close to realizing the fruits of three hard years of effort [as I've said each of these last three seasons]. When I see people write about our team recently [and they're not trashing our incompetence], it's 'well yeah, they've now amassed a core of young future [third and fourth] starters, but then they have all these other problems.' Whoa whoa whoa, let's slow down, let's not gloss over it. It's HARD to amass a core of young future starters. That took us time [especially with our crappy former GM]... And so the last three years haven't been a waste [except for the money fans have spent on tickets] because it took us that time to assemble the pieces [by stumbling into Stephen Strasburg] that are now I think starting to materialize as big parts of our future. For me the highlights of our first half of the season haven't been any particular wins [because there have been so few of them] or home runs [given up by our closers], it's been the maturation [they are all older, afterall] of a young starting rotation in addition to the realization there are more on the way not yet here in Washington [who might suck slightly less than Danny Cabrera did].

Are the Nats finally starting to not tolerate losing?
[N]o matter how bad our staunchest fan [note the singular] feels we feel much worse about this [especially as we look at our projected revenue drop next season]. This isn't at all acceptable to us [or our accountants]. We are going to keep trying [gosh darn it, we work hard!] to make moves both in the front office and on the field to get it right [and if it doesn't work, as it hasn't in the past three seasons, we'll go back to the drawing board.  Again!].

On Manny Acta:
People [and most of the players] didn't see those times behind closed doors where he was a very different guy one on one or with the team privately out of the sight of the media when he could be very forceful and direct [instead of staring blankly with less intensity than a cold fluorescent lightbulb]. I valued Manny's essential qualities of [working cheaper than 29 other managers and] being, as a veteran player said to me, 'the same guy every day. you always know where Manny is. He's the same guy every day.' That is an important quality [even though my first sentences indicated he was a different person in private than in public].

On why the cheap Lerner family was shirking their public responsibilities and avoiding the press conference:
Because I'm the team president and this is my responsibility [and they wouldn't spring for the car service from their 500-acre estates] and I'm ultimately responsible [publicly for their gross incompetence and] for everything that goes on here [except for the really bad stuff] and I accept all the blame [and even though I'm standing tall and heroically here, I won't resign].

Chris Needham used to write Capitol Punishment.  He wishes Stan spoke more often.

Copyright FREEL - NBC Local Media
Contact Us