Nats' Prospects Have Been Grim (二)
That exodus of young talent occurred around the time when ownership of the
Expos shifted to the 29 other major league teams. With no true owner, the
franchise did not have the scouting and player development resources of other
teams. It's still trying to catch up.
Nationals scouting director Dana Brown jokes about the white space at the
bottom of the Baseball America directory page that lists the Nationals'
scouts; the names of other teams' staffers creep toward the bottom of their
respective pages. Brown said the Nationals have 16 scouts this season, an
increase from recent years but still about six fewer than most clubs.
"What that means is that during the scouting season, they're in six more
ballparks than we are each day," Brown said. "At the end of the scouting
season, they've probably seen somewhere from 450 to 500 more games."
The team also did not have the money to draft and sign premium high school
players, who command heftier bonuses than college players, some of whom might
not have been talented enough to be drafted out of high school.
In 2002 and 2003, only one of the Expos' top seven picks each year was a high
school player. In 2004, the top two selections, and 18 of the first 20, were
from college. And in 2005, the first draft with the team in Washington, and
still with no owner in place, only one of the first 11 players chosen was
from high school.
The team's recent top draft picks before this season, Cordero (2003),
left-hander Bill Bray (2004) -- who was traded to Cincinnati last week -- and
Zimmerman (2005) all were from college, and all three have helped the major
league team.
But drafting older players, who can reach the major leagues faster but are
less likely to make the marked improvements that high school players can
make, did nothing to restock the farm system. Without that annual infusion of
new talent, the farm system's infrastructure has grown creaky.
"If you [draft and sign young players] two or three years in a row, now
you're really building from the bottom up as opposed to signing Zimmerman and
Cordero and Bray, who are going to really fly through the system," Brown
said. "Whenever you rebuild, you can't think with this microwave age we live
in. You have to think long term, more of a conventional oven. You have to let
it bake, and it takes time."
Further handcuffing the front office was the lack of resources to devote to
scouring international markets for talent, particularly in Latin America.
According to MLB.com, as of 2004 more than 45 percent of players in major
league organizations were born outside the United States.
That exodus of young talent occurred around the time when ownership of the
Expos shifted to the 29 other major league teams. With no true owner, the
franchise did not have the scouting and player development resources of other
teams. It's still trying to catch up.
Nationals scouting director Dana Brown jokes about the white space at the
bottom of the Baseball America directory page that lists the Nationals'
scouts; the names of other teams' staffers creep toward the bottom of their
respective pages. Brown said the Nationals have 16 scouts this season, an
increase from recent years but still about six fewer than most clubs.
"What that means is that during the scouting season, they're in six more
ballparks than we are each day," Brown said. "At the end of the scouting
season, they've probably seen somewhere from 450 to 500 more games."
The team also did not have the money to draft and sign premium high school
players, who command heftier bonuses than college players, some of whom might
not have been talented enough to be drafted out of high school.
In 2002 and 2003, only one of the Expos' top seven picks each year was a high
school player. In 2004, the top two selections, and 18 of the first 20, were
from college. And in 2005, the first draft with the team in Washington, and
still with no owner in place, only one of the first 11 players chosen was
from high school.
The team's recent top draft picks before this season, Cordero (2003),
left-hander Bill Bray (2004) -- who was traded to Cincinnati last week -- and
Zimmerman (2005) all were from college, and all three have helped the major
league team.
But drafting older players, who can reach the major leagues faster but are
less likely to make the marked improvements that high school players can
make, did nothing to restock the farm system. Without that annual infusion of
new talent, the farm system's infrastructure has grown creaky.
"If you [draft and sign young players] two or three years in a row, now
you're really building from the bottom up as opposed to signing Zimmerman and
Cordero and Bray, who are going to really fly through the system," Brown
said. "Whenever you rebuild, you can't think with this microwave age we live
in. You have to think long term, more of a conventional oven. You have to let
it bake, and it takes time."
Further handcuffing the front office was the lack of resources to devote to
scouring international markets for talent, particularly in Latin America.
According to MLB.com, as of 2004 more than 45 percent of players in major
league organizations were born outside the United States.
Washington had four of the top 70 selections in the June amateur draft and
chose high school players with its first six picks. There also is speculation
that the team might swap big leaguers such as Alfonso Soriano and Livan
Hernandez for additional prospects before the trading deadline at the end of
the month.
"We went young this year," said Brown, with obvious satisfaction, calling
himself "a kid in a candy store" now that the team's new ownership group
headed by the family of Theodore N. Lerner has lifted the financial
restrictions of recent years.
The team made inroads internationally earlier this month by signing coveted
16-year-old Dominican shortstop Esmailyn Gonzalez to a contract that includes
a $1.4 million signing bonus.
In the past year, some reorganization has already occurred -- General Manager
Jim Bowden has promoted Bob Boone to head the player development department
and, among other moves, hired former big league manager Davey Johnson as a
special consultant who will scout players inside and outside the system --
and the Nationals also have been more active in Latin America this season,
with Jose Rijo, a former major league pitcher and a special assistant to
Bowden, running an academy in his native Dominican Republic.
"We have a presence, where before we were just piecing it together," Brown
said. "It was more like having replacement players in the Dominican just to
keep the operation going. Now we're going to really build it the right way
because we have the facility and are aggressive at signing players."
A different philosophy going into the draft and creating inroads into Latin
America are just the first steps.
"We're now marching to a different beat," Brown said. "You win in the minor
leagues by just flooding the system with talent. Just continue to pour talent
into the system until it overflows. That's when you develop top-end players.
The guy in the middle, he's going to have to learn to fight for a job. When
it's competitive at the minor league level, that means your big league team
is going to be better."
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