MVN - Most Valuable Network

The last 2 years

Prosecution:

Let me be the first to say the last two years have been better.  The depth and talent of players has increased who knows how much. The improvement has been obvious.  Yes, it’s been a glorious time…for the Nationals minor leagues.  The major league squad, however, continues to flounder.  It has been said that Bowden is simply waiting for enough young talent to move foward.   I did not know that was the role of a GM.  To sit and wait.  To bandage together whatever team he could put out there hoping that maybe next year a young savior would appear.  I thought it was to put together a competitive major league squad. 

But in that role Bowden again showed no skill or aptitude.  One only needs to look at the bench he’s constructed.  A bench is where a GM shows his merit.  A bench is where nearly every GM in the league is given next to no funds and no particular guidance other than to construct a group that will support the team.  What has Bowden done?  Robert Fick? Ryan Langerhans? D’Angelo Jimenez?  Johnny Estrada? Willie Harris?  Rob Macowiak? Do I need to tell you the team has been near the bottom in pinch hitter average the past two years.

And when Bowden has made a decent move, like the blind squirrel finding a nut, he compounds it with something very questionable.   Finding Dmitri Young having a career year.   Don’t trade him for young talent, no!  Sign him for two more years!   Steal Jesus Flores away from the Mets and watch him show major league talent.   Don’t start him the next year, no! Spend what little funds you have on the declining talents of Paul LoDuca!

Still improvement is improvement and we cannot deny that.   However, but I find it funny.   When people talk about Bowden in the past two years, they often used phrases like “he’s been good under Kasten’s control” or “he’s really helped the minors take shape with the guidance of Rizzo”.  Is that the kind of GM the Nationals want?  Someone who needs to be “controlled” and “guided” to do an adequate job? I say no.  This team needs a GM who can stand on his own two feet and show success. Bowden did not do it before this management came in.  Bowden has not done it since.   Bowden is clearly not that man.

Defense:

So the prosecution agrees that the team has improved, but can’t bring himself to credit Bowden for it.   That’s no surprise.  Bowden’s detractors have always put down his successes.   Yes he made some bad moves, find me a GM that hasn’t, but look at those good moves the past two years.  You want to talk about getting younger, how about grabbing Elijah Dukes, and trading for Lastings Milledge?  How about signing all those young drafted pitchers, Detwiler, Smoker, Zimmermann, McGeary? What about stealing Jesus Flores for nothing?

So he made a one-year error in brining in LoDuca, and his two year signing of Young was questionable.  Oh somebody alert the press, a GM made an error or two signing a veteran!  This is front page news!   The important part isn’t the mistakes it’s that they are one-year and two-year mistakes.  Easily tradeable deals and even if they don’t get dealt they are gone before you know it.  

You want to talk about the money it costs, well gladly.  Because here we see the real problem.  It’s not Bowden keeping the Nationals from being a good major league team.  It’s the fact that they were 28th in payroll last year and 26th this one.  The Lerners are, for lack of a better word, cheap, at least when it comes to the major league team and we all feel the effects.  Fans, players, and yes, Jim Bowden.  Yeah a team or two does compete at the bottom of the payroll, but these are teams with several year commitments to getting better.   Bowden has had, let me see, one… two.  Two years.  Unless you know something about what major league baseball was doing before then that I don’t. 

In two years, with money only going to the minors, Bowden has helped turn the minors from the worst in baseball to a Top 10 group.  The shame isn’t that he hasn’t improved the majors, the shame is he hasn’t gotten the money to try.

Yes he’s had some help.  Kasten and Rizzo and a bunch of those other guys are helping.  That’s their job.  Would you prefer if they sat around and did nothing?  So they have a good deal of influence.  Well, that’s how it’s going to be down here for as far as I can see it.  They need a GM that doesn’t butt heads in that type of system, but one that works with it.  Jim Bowden has proven that he can do it, why take the chance to bring in someone else who may not fit in? 

The past two years Bowden has been successsful in a great minor league turnaround.  It took money and it took some help, but he was in charge and it happened.  He should get the same chance to deliver, or fail to, with the major league team.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 8:45 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.