The New Nationals
Over the weekend, the guys at Fire Jim Bowden got the result they’ve been asking for – while he resigned instead of being publicly canned, Bowden is out as general manager of the Washington Nationals. While he was able to survive 100 loss seasons and a reputation in the game as one of the least liked front office people around, he couldn’t sidestep the mismanagement of the team’s Dominican operations and the scandal surrounding Jose Rijo‘s academy and the signing of Esmailyn Gonzalez.
So now, the Nationals have to pick a new leader, a new direction, and try to right a ship that is honestly quite damanged. Despite a new park, fans haven’t responded by paying to watch a bad team, and the farm system isn’t brimming with young talent ready to lead the team into the future. The roster is a mix of underachieving outfielders, overachieving outfielders, correctly achieving outfielders, a couple of backup outfielders, and some role player-type outfielders in camp on minor league contracts. There’s also a couple of pitchers hanging around.
For whoever inherits the GM job, whether it’s Mike Rizzo, Tony LaCava, or someone else entirely, they’re going to have to make some significant adjustments quickly. This roster just doesn’t make a team, and there are too many pieces that just don’t fit together. The Nationals need to shuffle some pieces around.
That starts with Nick Johnson. In the last year of a three year contract that has seen him barely take the field, he’s owed $5.5 million for 2009 and then will hit free agency. He just doesn’t fit into the team’s future plans in any way, shape, or form. Meanwhile, the signing of Adam Dunn made an already crowded outfield even more confusing, and his defensive limitations really should keep him from having to chase fly balls around. In short, Dunn needs to play first base, which puts Johnson out of a job. The new GM would be well served to find a spot for him on another roster, even if it means picking up some of his contract in order to get a potentially useful player at another position in return.
Once you get Dunn out of the outfield mix, the logjam frees up a little bit – Milledge and Dukes play when they’re healthy, with Kearns/Willingham/Harris splitting the remaining outfield spot between them. You’d hope that Kearns plays well enough to re-establish some trade value in the summer, so getting him playing time should be a priority.
And, speaking of the summer, perhaps no decision will loom bigger for the Nationals than how to spend the #1 pick in the draft this June. Stephen Strasburg is everyone’s number one prospect, and while he’s going to demand significant money, the Nats just aren’t in a position to pass on him. When you’re attempting to re-establish credibility for your franchise, and there’s a consensus top talent available in a draft where you have the pick of the litter, you have to take that guy. The new GM would be wise to make that a prerequisite for accepting the job – he has to have ownership approval to draft and sign Strasburg this summer.
It’s not going to be an easy job patching the holes that Bowden put in the ship, but it can be done. It just has to start quickly.
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What’s the over/under on the Nats relocating?
They’ve played one season in a brand spanking new stadium. The odds of this team relocating in the near future are basically zero.
How was attendance in the brand spanking new stadium? They’ve tried in this market, it doesn’t work for baseball…
They lost more games than anyone and still outdrew a third of the league, including the AL champs…
Comparing your attendance to the Rays is like comparing MSFTs balance sheets to Enron’s.
They barely drew 29,000 with an exciting new stadium.
The Jays outdrew them, they haven’t played meaningful baseball in over a decade.
As a percentage of capacity (the fairest measure), that brand spanking new stadium ranked #15, so exactly half the teams (including Colorado, Atlanta, and Tampa Bay) did a poorer job of filling their available seats than the Nationals did. It’s less meaningful to compare on a raw attendance basis since markets and stadium capacities differ, but it’s pretty notable that the Nationals significantly out-drew Baltimore — in both raw/average attendance and percent-of-capacity terms — in what is an overlapping market (and without the benefit of 18 home games against the Yankees and Red Sox). They’re a long way from returning to their inner Expo-ness, and though the trend is obviously not good there’s nothing there that can’t get fixed by a competent new regime. Most notably, the only sizable business in the country that’s growing at the moment is the Federal Government, so those luxury suites are going to remain valuable perks for the K Street boys to throw around.
If you want to talk about a team relocating, look to Oakland. Now that their Fremont stadium plan has completely fallen through, all the options are on the table. The most likely scenario just has them moving further down I-880 to San Jose (over the Giants’ objections, but just ask Angelos what that’s worth when MLB decides it wants to accommodate a team), but giving the financial realities faced by every level of government in California they’re not getting any funding to build a new stadium or even fix the old one. And it’s not like there’s a lot of corporate money floating around either. They’ll tough it out in Oakland for the time being, but Wolf may be looking in every corner of the country for a better deal.
Based on attendance, the team that really needs to be put out of its misery is the Marlins. But the best way to do that involves a simple owner-dectomy to get rid of the same evil SOB who drove the Nationals into the ground when they were the Expos… and around we go.
As long as we’re talking about turnarounds and GM changes, Dave, have you heard enough from the new management to make a change in your sig?
As a M’s fan, I’d wait to see if they keep on screwing up how they handle the WBC situation with Beltre. Not a good sign from the relationship management side of things.
Teapot, meet tempest.
I think it’s still 4-5 years before the Nationals have a chance to become a respectable organization, they’re just too broken right now. Too ridiculously broken.
I don’t know…there’s some serious upside (as well as significant downside) to a R. Zimmerman/Milledge/Dukes core of young club-controlled players. If Strasburg avoids injury and performs as advertised and one of J. Zimmerman/Detwiler takes the steps forward they need to realize their potential, you’re talking about a nice young nucleus in place for 2010 and beyond. It’s not full of sure things, but there’s upside there.
Where good teams are built once you’ve got that nucleus is at the filling out the roster level. If a new GM comes in and adds the right complementary parts, I can see them becoming a solid team if several things break right. Wishing for a grand convergence of possible good breaks isn’t where most teams want to be, but at least it’s possible.
I think they could do it in less time then 4-5 years. Keep in mind that as mentioned above they have a bunch of spare parts:
Johnson
Young
Willingham
Harris
Belliard
Kearns
Willy Mo Pena
While not BIG time players a good GM should be able to pick up a few spare parts from this mess that can help restock the Nationals club.
I also think that their lineup is going to mature and get much better. The previously mentioned trio of Zimmerman, Milledge, and Dukes should produce with Dukes being a potential star if he can keep his head on straight. If you take those three and add Dunn to the middle the could form a good nucleus. The big question for them is pitching. They seem to have a lot of pitching prospects, just not a lot of GOOD pitching prospects. However, they might be able to find a servicable #5 or a couple arms for the bullpen from all of their spare parts, plus free up a bunch of money. For a team that runs like a small market team they really have a lot of money tied up in bench players? I also think that their farm system will start going up now that Bowden is gone. Bowden always struck me as too much of a “tools” guy and never really fully evaluated a player (see Pena).
Zimmermann is thought to be a lot better than a 5 starter. #3, maybe a #2. Lannan already looks like the #4 – #5 rotation guy. Even if you regress his ERA all the way back to his projected FIP, as CHONE does, he’s still a mid-4′s pitcher. Bill James is much more optimistic. He did not have a huge jump in innings from 2007 to 2008 (counting minors), so he probably can get you 160 -170 innings comfortably. With an upgraded defense at 2d and 3d (discounting Nick Johnson’s health) and his extreme groundball tendencies, there’s reason to think he can hold a rotation slot in the majors. That’s 2, with Strasburg on the way. They can improve in a hurry.
After the way the Crow negotiations went last year, can you really just pencil Stasburg in for this team? If I was a Nats fan, I wouldn’t feel comfortable until he was signed, sealed, and delivered. As a Yankee fan, I watched as the team went through this last year with Cole, and it’s not like they have a history of letting money get in the way of nabbing talent.
Kevin, You make a valid point, but with all of the turmoil surrounding this team recently, I would think they would do everything they can to get him signed as quickly as possible. Time will tell….
Ok. I am a huge Nats fan and follow this club very closely. I also lived for years in DC and truely believe the park will sell out every game once the team becomes a powerhouse large market club. The market is the 6th largest in baseball when you look at population and wealth, so it should be able to draw very well once this club figures out how to win.
Now anyone who followed this team knows that Nick Johnson is about the most talented player playing firstbase in the game. He is as good if not better than Tiexera with his glove, onbases over .400 every year (.420 when healthy), and if he could play all season he would among the league leaders in extra base hits (60 or more) with more than 20 being homers every year. His downside is he is just about the most unlucky guy in the game in terms of injuries. Last season he played in 38 games and the Nats were about a .500 team when he played. So his health makes a huge difference on this club. Personally that injury history destroys most of his true value in terms of trading him. But should he be healthy, then the team would be beyond stupid not to play him every at bat/inning he can take the field. He is much better all round than Dunn has ever been or will ever be! If he can’t stay healthy then no one will want him anyway. I pray beyond pray Johnson is never traded.
As for everyone else. I could go into along analysis of the team, but I think the nationals will contend in 2010 or 2011 if their injury luck gets better. In fact, I would bet my house on it.
I’ll take that bet.