Concessions may be good for the soul, but they are lousy for just about any other industry, so the Washington Nationals taking a very public knee Tuesday is going to hurt them a good long while, enough to give other teams (say, like the Giants, just to name one team with a worse record) pause from ever doing so themselves.

Daniel Murphy going to the Cubs was . . . well, okay, fine. So was Matt Adams returning to the Cardinals. Even trying (and eventually failing) to move Bryce Harper to the Dodgers was, well, weird and kind of panicky, but explicable. But this isn’t about that. This is about team president/owner’s son Mark Lerner and his proclivity for letter-writing.

Lerner explained in a missive to the fans on Tuesday why the Nats were surrendering, offering the following unsatisfactory rationale:

“When something isn’t working, you evaluate the situation and take the necessary steps to improve it. You don’t just stand by, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. Unfortunately, in this case, that means making very tough decisions about our roster. I believed in this team, and would have loved to see them all play healthy together this season. However, the time has come for us to make decisions that will bolster our roster for next season and beyond. This is about giving us some roster flexibility, giving us the opportunity to see some of our young talent, and seeing if we can still find a combination or two that could spark a difference.”

But this is what he wrote three weeks ago at the July 31 trade deadline to those very same fans:

“In spite of a player payroll that exceeds $200 million — the second highest in baseball — and exceeding the luxury tax threshold, so far this season has not lived up to everyone’s expectations. The trade deadline forced us to take a hard look at the roster and contemplate whether to keep the team we have for the remainder of the season or make significant changes. At the end of the day, my family and (general manager) Mike Rizzo decided that we just couldn’t give up on this team. We couldn’t look ourselves in the mirror knowing that we had simply thrown in the towel on a team full of talent and heart.”

The ensuing three weeks have been as hot a mess as the previous 18, from the rampant carping inside the clubhouse to nostalgic cries for former manager Dusty Baker. The Nats are in a perfect freefall, weighed down by expectations, money and now the owner’s need to explain himself at the drop of a hat.

Which now explains at least in small part why the Giants have been pushing off the day of their own Grand Reconstruction – having to write the letter to the fans.

(Although, as John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle first reported and a source later confirmed to NBC Sports Bay Area's Alex Pavlovic, Buster Posey is expected to have season-ending hip surgery, which is both overdue and a oblique form of capitulation in itself).

See, when owners are happy, they typically talk into microphones and preen for cameras. When they aren’t, they dictate to subordinate typists. The reason? They don’t have to face the unhappy people they’ve been lifting money from all these many years, and nobody spends this kind of dough to have to stand and be mocked, slandered and middle-finger-saluted by strangers and poor people.

But here the Nats stand, naked and shamed, showing what other owners already know – the value of admitting nothing in person, and instead hiring someone the public won’t physically attack to deliver the bad news.

At some point, the Giants will have to excavate the remainings of the World Series rosters, and it will not sit well with the rampant nostalgics among the fan base. And yes, that means Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford and maybe even Madison Bumgarner. It will be a radical departure from their standard MO, but it will be unavoidable.

But if I were Larry Baer (and I think we both agree what a bad idea that would be), I’d avoid writing that Dear Fan letter. It never plays well unless it contains the following helpful phrase, “Look, we hosted the party, we got massively drunk, we passed out, and now the folks have come home and we have to clean everything up.” It may not be satisfactory answer, but it will at least get some knowing nods from the audience:

“Yeah, I used to do stupid stuff like that in college.”

And Baer should especially not include this, which comes from Lerner’s letter Tuesday:

“The good news is this is not a rebuilding effort. We have a lot of talent on our roster , from seasoned veterans to enthusiastic young guys. And Mike Rizzo and his team will be busy during the offseason making sure we have all of the pieces necessary to come back and be competitive next year.”

That one is so ridiculous that it could the ballpark burned down, and our firemen already have more than enough to do.