MVN - Most Valuable Network

The first two years

Defense:

There’s a hole in the prosecution’s case about as wide as Livan Hernandez’ posterior.  For the first two years of his tenure as GM Jim Bowden didn’t have a boss.   There was no Stienbrenner, no Veeck, no Ted Turner. Sure that means no meddling, but it also means no direction.  How can you expect a man to reach point B when he’s got no compass, no map?  The answer is simple.  You can’t. 

Worse yet instead of a boss, there was a Bud.  Bud Selig.  The man who ended an All-Star game in a tie, who tried to contract the Minnesota Twins, who turend a blind eye to steroids for god knows how long.  You expect anyone to succeed under this man?    Bud and a committee of probably 40 fat cats were trying to wring every last cent from this team. That means Bowden’s job was to put some lipstick on this pig and sell it at market.   Make sure it’s cheap lipstick to, because major league baseball just can’t afford any big signings.  Boo hoo.

You think you as fans suffered, well Jim suffered to.  Imagine getting a second chance at your dream job and being hamstrung like this? Payroll severly limited, team gutted, now build us a team we can sell?  Talk about your impossible job. 

The funny thing is he did it.  He took these lemons and for two years made lemonade.  In 2005, he put together an 81 win team, a team that was in first place for a good part of the season and drafted a player most people thnk could be a cornerstone, franchise player in Ryan Zimmerman.  In 2006, he traded for one of the more exciting players in baseball and brought in several potential young position starters.  Fans were interested.  The city committed to a new stadium. The team was sold. His old bosses were happy, and the new bosses were impressed enough that they kept him on.  They didn’t keep the manager on.  They gutted most of the staff, but they kept him on.  The prsecution will try to tell you that Jim Bowden didn’t do his job well these first two years, I ask you , if everyone was happy, how can this tenure be considered a failure?

Prosecution:

If everyone was happy, how can this tenure be considered a failure?

The answer is simple.  Because the goal of a GM is to balance two competing desires.  Yes, it’s to make people happy, your boss, the fans, the players.  But at the same time it’s to ensure these same people will be happy in the future by setting up the team for success in the long run.  In that aspect Bowden, these first two years, failed and some might say he did so spectacularly.

2005 was a magical year, but what did Bowden really do?  Most of the success lied with players already here.  Nick Johnson, Jose Vidro, Ryan Church, Livan Hernandez, John Patterson, a killer bullpen.   Do you know how many of the top 6 bullpen guys Bowden brought in?  1.

For every decent move he made there was a matching horrible one. Esteban Loaiza?  Vinny Castilla.   Jose Guillen? Cristian Guzman.  His biggest work was done with the bench, a group so horrible their names make Nats fans shudder to this day.  Wil ”Wife Beater” Cordero, Carlos ”The Waddler” Baerga, Gary “PB” Bennett.   The team went on this remarkable run more in spite of Jim Bowden than because of.  And when it came time to make that last push, to capitalize on an amazing first half…they traded for Junior Spivey, out of baseball after that year, Devei Cruz, out of baseball after that year.  Preston Wilson at least made it to 2007, but let’s not forget hewas brought in for his fielding. 

Not only did his moves not help this team, and possibly hurt the team, but they made the team worse for the future.  The Nats had pitching depth.  Mediocre pitching depth but at least it was something.  That depth was gutted.  Gone Claudio Vargas, Zack Day, Tomo Ohka.  Don’t care?  What about Scott Downs, Macier Iztruis, Juan Rivera.  Guys we should be seeing soon Val Pascucci, Alejandro Machado? These were all at least relatively young players. Relatively cheap players.  Gone.  Not to get younger or cheaper mind you. The 2005 Nationals were the oldest team in the league! Useful talent gone for what? For nothing.

2006 looked fine in comparison to 2005, but it wasn’t a winner by any means.  His two biggest deals failed at their ultimate goals and worse yet, he gave up young pitching to make these deals.  He did not turn Soriano into a haul of major league ready top prospects. Gone is Armando Galarraga  Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez haven’t turned out to be useful everyday players.  Gone is Bill Bray, Gary Majewski, and Daryl Thompson.    If you are going to give up decent young pitching, the most precious commodity a team can have, I’m sorry but those deals have to work.

It wasn’t until August of 2006, with the Stanton and Livan deals that Bowden got younger and got pitching back.  He did some more work when dealing Marlon Anderson and Daryle Ward.  But for me, it’s too little too late.

Look at that track record. Look at what the man did.  Maybe he was just following a mandate from baseball, but I guarantee you the mandate wasn’t mortgage the team’s future by losing every useful young player you can find!

He may have made everyone happy, and for that, he should be recognized, but he did it by taking a beaten farm system and kicking it while it was down.  A GM must succeed at both levels, not just one.  This team shouldn’t be happy with half a GM.  The team deserves better.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 10:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.