Mike Rizzo talked during Dusty Baker's introductory press conference in the nation's capital in early November about the decision to hire former Texas Rangers' coach Mike Maddux as the Washington Nationals' new pitching coach.
"Michael had, in his contract, he had an out," Rizzo explained.
"He had a window to discuss with other teams. We took that opportunity to discuss with him generalities and then later on when we made the Dusty decision and got Dusty finalized, Mike became a free agent at that time and he was the first guy after I talked to Dusty about it, he was the first guy that we went after and we went after him extremely hard and aggressive and we got him and in one day he made his decision.