“I’ve never been the type of player that’s looking for statistics.”

You know what?  If it would help you say….”get on base” or “hit for power” or even “throw out runners”, well then maybe you should start looking for these “statistics” you speak of. 

“I want to win games. I want to be out there to help this team win. “

Then you go out there and you rake that infield dirt to its finest consistency because that’s going to be the most help you can give the Nationals.

Jesus Flores :  .238 / .293 / .369   

After hitting .340 / .417 / .528 in May  you wondered why the Nats would try to put this guy in AAA.  There’s the reason.  With a reasonable BABIP (.290 in June, .486 in May!) he’s a .240 hitter. Thing is with all this time under his belt, does it really help going down to AAA?  It’s not a hitch in his swing that he’s working at, it’s timing major league pitching.  To me that’s something that can only be worked out on the major legaue level.  If you didn’t believe Flores was the catcher of the future, I can see him playing AAA ball to see how he does there first, but for the Nats there should be no question.  Flores is the man from here on through the next few years.  He should play and play every day.

All that being said I like the power I see, and think that’ll improve.  I think Flores is better than a .240 hitter as well.  A .260 / .320 / .420 line might not seem like much, but real catching is hard to find.  Those numbers put him close to being a Top 10 hitting catching, so don’t be dismayed if he’s not a .300 hitter. 

Elijah Dukes : .292 / .395 / .481 

 A June nearly as awesome as his May was horrendous.  He walked he hit for power.  You couldn’t ask for anything more.  The most positive thing about Elijah in my book is the consistency of his patience.  Now tied for 2nd in walks (yes, still behind Nick) he was walking even when he wasn’t hitting. A .311 OBP with he was batting .167.   To still see him walking now that he is putting the bat on the ball shows a player that wasn’t just grasping for ways to get on base, but a player with an honestly good eye.

I’ll be curious to see if his power stays when his average declines (as it likely will - .375 BABIP for June) in the 2nd half.  If that’s the case it’ll be hard not to be hyped about his future.

Lastings Milledge : .242 / .303 / .384

Milledge’s worth is all tied up in his average, even though he hit for a bit more power in June than he had in April or May.  Simply put he has to hit .280+ to even start to be useful.  Not necessarily this year mind you, but soon.  June was clearly a disappointment , but it was actually a slight step up from May.  A continuation of that and a batting average around .260 in July would be nice. 

 However right now the major concern is getting him back from injury without losing him for the season.  Roger Bernadina, Kory Casto, Willie Harris aren’t the long term answer Milledge might be.

Wily Mo Pena : .242 / .254 / .323

Wily Mo didn’t bottom out in June as we all probably thought he would, instead keeping his hopes alive by getting enough base hits.   Still I’ve said it before and I will until there is a resolution, Pena more than anyone is here for his hittting.  He needs to get on base and he definitely needs to slug.   He has done neither for half a season now.

Can you say the same thing about Milledge? Sure, but Lastings is 3+ years younger than Wily and has about 1000 less at bats in the major leagues.  You can still say he’s learning.  Wily Mo you can’t.  Why not make a deal to an AL team for a underperforming 27/28 yr old former MI prospect?  or any pitching? He’s no use to the Nats now.

New Roundtable Up!

 with Miss Chatter and Nationals Enquirer.   Read it, if only to justify…our hard work?  No, that’s not it, it’s just emailing. That isn’t hard.  Our passion?  Well, maybe for the other two, but I can hardly bring myself to care about the Nats without a cocktail of powerful narcotics.

Well read it to justify something of your choosing.

I’ve peered into the future though and that’s not the worst of it.

July 12th : Shawn Hill discovers he is missing his right arm from the elbow down. Nats: “To be fair, we thought his grip might have been a bit off.”

August 1st: Ryan Zimmerman’s DL stint linked to Leprosy. Nats: “Lesions? We thought they were bruises from extra infield practice”

September 20th: Nick Johnson should be back this weekend. Nats: “Nick is a still little slow on the basepaths, but is showing his trademark patience at the plate”

September 21st: Nick Johnson found to be dead since April. Nats: “We’re still putting him in at first”

There is no truth to the rumor that the Nats med staff diagnosedBallWonk, Basil from Federal Baseball, and Chris at Capitol Punishment with a runny nose, a hangnail, and split ends respectively.

An honest to god prospect pitching in the majors for the Nats.  Granted he was drafted in 2004, before the current regime, hell, before the Nationals existed, but it’s something.  His numbers in the minors don’t look all that great, but he’s been pitching real well lately.  (check out the last report on him from NFA).  At only 22 if he fails this time it doesn’t mean that much, but let’s hope that he’s a hit from the start.   This team needs some good new young blood.  (I wasn’t talking to you, Bernadina.  Just be happy to be here.)

In other news:  

Sorry Jimbo.  One questionable All-Star selection would not invalidate a contract full of not playing (which includes 2005.  Oh! Burn!)

I totally nailed the Nats taking the Orioles series.  Of course, before you pat me on the back, I also I have them going 4-9 the rest of the way.   I could be right, but I bet you’d be a lot less happy about that.

Stan-Speaking over at NationalsFanBoyLooser.

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.

The strange thing is…I could agree with the move.
 

I won’t lie to you, it’s not the direction I’d want the team to move in.  Guzman’s is the MVP of the team by most accounts, might be an All-Star.  But the offense he’s providing is only slightly better than league average 

How can we tell?  He has a 101 adjusted OPS.  That’s almost dead average for a NL SS.  Now I do feel that number is slightly skewed against Cristian, because, all other things being equal, someone with a .323 OBP batting .311 is going to provide you with more offense than someone with a .323 OBP hitting .265.  But it’s not the difference between average and good, more like average and slightly above average.  Which is what I said.  So there.

(Another thing - it’s nice that Guzman leads the league in hits, but that’s more a function of getting up about 30 more times than the next closest player.  He’s like 7th in average or something. Can we just talk about that?  That’s pretty good  and everyone can get behind that.  I was going to say this before your comment DC Wonk…honestly)

Worse yet, we’d have to think that Guzman can’t keep up these numbers.   Why? Well history tells us he can’t and ”present” tells us he can’t.

Historically Cristian is not a great hitter.  Yes 2005 was an aberration born out of bad luck and possibly injury, but even discounting that year Guzman has never been impressive at the plate.  He only put together one year (2001) in about 6 years of baseball that could be considered good. The rest it would be charitable to call average.  Also for three years, 2002-2004, Guzman produced extremely consistent stats, averaging out to be something like .272 / .307 / .378.  This is what history tells us to expect, with minor variation, from Guzman.  These numbers…well they aren’t good.  They just aren’t.  Not in the NL. Not for a SS. Not anyway you look at it (oh 2005 Boz, how I miss your crazy statements)

Current information (ok this is going to get all into some fancy numbers.  If you don’t like that just take the historic definition and move down to the next paragraph) tells us that Cristian has a BABIP of .323.  That’s a bit high, it’s not crazy, but you’d probably expect it to go down. First though you’d want to check his line drive rate.  17.7% so far this year.  That’s a little lower than you’d expect to see with that BABIP. Is this imperfect?  Oh god yes.  But it’s not meant to tell you with certainty what will happen, only to give you a general idea of what’s likely. And what’s likely is that Cristian’s numbers will decline somewhat.

OK so history tells us Cristian will hit around .270 / .310 / .380.   Current info tells us he’s going to drop from what he is hitting now: .311 / .335 / .431.   He’s passing his prime years at a physically demanding position. He has a history of missing some major time due to injury.   Why then could I agree with the move?

Because I fear what the Nats would do otherwise.  Pursuing Cristian almost certainly means they WON’T be pursuing any big name free agents this year (though I’d love to see them prove me wrong).  One of the best free agents coming up this offseason is Rafael Furcal. A SS with the potential to be a real offensive threat. The Nats biggest hole, one with no prospects of being filled, is MI. Seems like a match.  To then, not even halfway through the season, commit to Guzman for 2 more years, says they aren’t interested in even looking at Furcal.  To not even look at a big-name free agent that would fill a great need, tells me they aren’t looking at looking at any big-name free agents next year. (again - I admit I could be wrong but you want to talk about history telling us something - how about the Lerners not spending big bucks on any player)

If this is the case and the Nats don’t sign Guzman that means they are probably going to look to throw some league-minimum money at someone else; say Angel Berroa, Willie Bloomquist, or Nick Punto.  Guzman, there’s a certain trust that he’s going to give you a .270 batting average.  He might give you nothing else, but unless he has another incredibly unlucky year, he’ll give you that.  These guys, or worse yet a fill-in from the Nats AAA squad couldn’t even guarantee that.

Resigning Guzman to me is a bad thing, but less so because of the move, which is likely the best one they could make given the direction they are looking at for next year, then for the fact it shows the direction they are looking at for next year.  It seems more and more likely that the team is going to put no money into the roster until it is time to compete.  While that sounds like a good thing, because of the vagaries of the draft and minors it could mean several more years of very mediocre teams. A few unlucky breaks (Marrero anyone) or bad drafts choices, hell AVERAGE draft choices, and you can kiss competing under the first Obama/McCain administration goodbye. 

Guzmania is here to stay.(possibly)

For 2 years.   I guess my thoughts that they were going to make a splash in the free agent market were ill-founded.

Who the hell cares who the GM is then. Get a monkey, a bottle of scotch, and a dartboard. (but leave the draft to Rizzo)

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.