Bowden fails to capitalize on Nats' commodities
by Benjamin Kabak
August 02, 2006
As Monday’s trade deadline rolled around, Nationals’ General Manager Jim
Bowden seemed to be in the driver’s seat. His franchise was one in need of
an infusion of young talent, and many of Bowden’s top players were viewed as
pieces that could fit on playoff contending teams.
But as the dust settled after 4 p.m. on Monday, the Nationals were left
largely in tact. Their big bopper Alfonso Soriano still manned left field
that night; their supposed ace Livan Hernandez and rumored-to-be-traded Tony
Armas are still on the staff; even their latest acquisition Austin Kearns is
still wearing the script W this week. Was this week a blown opportunity for
Bowden and new team president Stan Kasten to begin a much-needed rebuilding
process?
For a few years, the Washington Nationals have been a team in search of
direction. As the MLB-owned Expos, the team was forced to shed payroll. They
couldn’t sign big free agents; they couldn’t even afford the slot money for
their top draft picks in some cases. They were left adrift with no player
development staff and no scouting department to speak off.
But even still, MLB hired a proven General Manager Jim Bowden to oversee the
team’s move to Washington. Bowden is far from a popular choice with the fans
though. He has a reputation as an overly active GM on the trade market and
for shooting for the moon when that could harm rather than help his team. It
seems that both sides of Trader Jim’s persona were at work this week.
The biggest move Bowden didn’t make was trading Alfonso Soriano. For week,
everyone in baseball assumed Soriano would go. The 30-year-old has long been
something of an enigma. He’s a fast power-hitter with no plate discipline
and a motivation issue. While Soriano is having one of his best offensive
seasons ever with an OBP nearly .040 higher than his career average and a
slugging percentage that far outpaces his career mark, Soriano’s motivation
has long been an issue.
Is Soriano playing this well to reach his personal goal of a 40/40 season
that eluded him a few years ago? Is Soriano playing this well because he can
count the $65 million contract awaiting him in the promised land of free
agency? All we know for sure is that Soriano was basically dumped by the
Yankees after a pitiful 2003 postseason and that Soriano didn’t play up to
expectations among a loaded lineup in a hitter’s park in Texas.
With these factors in mind, the rational decision would have been to sell
high. Many teams wanted Soriano’s bat for the stretch drive and would have
parted with Major League-ready talent in exchange. The Nationals,
conveniently enough, are short Major League-ready talent in their farm
system. They have a bunch of aging, mediocre players taking the field each
day in DC and not much in the way of relief coming down the pike.
But Bowden didn’t sell at all. He’s decided that Soriano will stick around
and play out the last 57 games in Washington, D.C. The Nats will try to sign
him to a five-year deal worth about $65-$70 million, and he’ll become the
face of the franchise. There’s nothing like giving a selfish player on the
wrong side of 30 an incredibly overvalued contract. In his six full season in
the Majors, Soriano is having a career year, and everyone about that screams
outlier, to borrow a math term. He is far exceeding his career averages in
every offensive category, and there is no good reason to think he’ll get
better as he gets older.
But for now, he stays.
The story in Washington is the same for many players. Livan Hernandez, Jose
Vidro, Jose Guillen (before he got injured), Tony Armas and Austin Kearns all
could have fetched the Nats should talent. Instead, this patchwork roster of
spare parts is kept intact by a General Manager who cannot decide whether to
sell or not. The writers at Oleanders and Morning Glories summed it up best:
That's why I'm depressed, I guess. I look at the Nationals and
I see a version of the KC Royals. I look at Alfonso Soriano and
I see Mike Sweeney. A player who had his best year of his career
in his walk year, who the fans and players desperately wanted
management to resign. A player that should have been dealt if the
team was serious about keeping costs low and rebuilding from within.
I don't believe Lerner/Kasten will ever let it get as bad as it
has been in KC, but at the same time I don't believe they'll kick
in the payroll necessary for it to be good, as in playoff contender.
I don't care how exciting Soriano makes it, I don't want to spend
the next few years watching an 80 million dollar, 80 win team.
And they're not the only ones bemoaning the lack of action.
In the end, it was just the latest poor move in a franchise adrift in a sea
of smarter competitors. As the Nationals look ahead to a new state-of-the-art
ballpark in downtown D.C., the fans won’t have the same enthusiasm. They’ll
simply see a bunch of worthless older veterans who should have been turned
into younger talent this year. It is mediocrity and a schizophrenic baseball
mind on display for all the world to see.
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