MVN - Most Valuable Network

2 Responses to “Sprechen Stan?”

1. Nationals Fan @ Fire Jim Bowden says:
   

   June 28th, 2008 at 11:07 am

   Hey–forgive me for returning to an old post, but I just now saw Chris’s reply to my comment on the LoDuca signing.
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   “To me, the PLod signing was not just a waste of limited resources, it reveals a lack of commitment to the long-term player development and youth. You don’t block a major-league ready talent if you are committed to the Plan.”

   You’re all over the goddamn place!

   Under your arbitration criticism — which you’re now apparently walking away from — signing Lo Duca is the perfect move, since it would’ve (barring injury) traded a season of Flores now for a season when he’s fully developed later.

   Pick a line of reasoning and stick with it, please.
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   My reply:

   Different players, totally different situations.

   Zimmerman was the #4 overall pick in the draft, a player whose high end projection is MVP-level. Flores is a very good catching prospect, no doubt, but he’s no Zimmerman. Flores’s age 27 projected VORP is 16.1. Zimmerman’s is 37. So it’s very unlikely that he sparks the kind of bidding war Zimmerman will. That’s why the kind of conservative arb clock management I’m arguing for with Zimmy gets reserved for the Jay Bruces and Ryan Brauns of the world. You don’t see guys like Jesus Flores getting long-term pre-arb deals. You see Tulo, Hanley, and Braun getting those kinds of commitments.

   There are other differences, but that’s the big one. MLB is a game for superstars, and you have to manage your contracts and roster with those guys foremost in your mind. You just don’t handle good players the same way you do great ones.

2. Nationals Fan @ Fire Jim Bowden says:
   

   June 28th, 2008 at 12:44 pm

   “Not saying that he should be kept around, but I am saying that I don’t think we should fear him giving up youth anytime soon.”
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   I hope you’re right. And I suspect you are.

   It leads me back to the point you made when arguing for the prosecution–do we really want a GM “needs to be ‘controlled’ and ‘guided’ to do an adequate job.”

   It also goes to this ongoing gripe about the payroll. The same people who are “controlling” Bowden’s most impatient instincts are the same people presumably holding back the spending–Kasten and his people.

   Who’s going to sit in the meetings at Nats HQ and convince the owners that it’s time to spend more, or that it makes sense for their financial bottom lines to raise payroll to 80m right now hence not alienate their dwindling fan base any more?

   There seems like there’s a core of people in the Nats blogoshpere who seem to expect the owners NOT to want to make as much money as possible. I’m pretty left-wing in my personal politics, but even I think it’s kind of silly to expect greedy capitalists not to act like greedy capitalists.

   Seems to me that it would be the GM’s job to convince the owners that it’s smart to spend more. But if you are a “weak” GM, as in the portrait you’re painting, or if you have a clear track record of dumb spending when you are allowed to spend, why should they listen to him?

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