Where is Jim Bowden taking my Nationals?

a-danv — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:08:17 -0000

The Washington Nationals were the worst team in baseball last season, and though the Mariners gave them a run for their money this year, it really shouldn’t have been close. There are few bright spots in the Nationals lineup, and even their star, Ryan Zimmerman, would probably only be the 5 hitter on a championship level team. Although Bowden’s latest deal addresses two areas of weakness for the Nationals—starting pitching and power hitting—it is completely uninspiring. Scott Olsen and Josh Willingham are not championship-caliber players.

Olsen is one of a slew of young, talented arms the Marlins tried to get to stick in the major leagues over the last couple of years. A couple seasons ago he was interchangeable with Josh Johnson, Anibal Sanchez, or Ricky Nolasco—unproven, but promising. But while Nolasco, Johnson, and Sanchez have all had seasons of over 100 innings with a sub-4.00 ERA, Olsen never has. Since 2006, his K rate has fallen from 8.27 to 5.04. His ERAs for the past three seasons are 4.04, 5.81, and 4.20. He hit 200 innings for the first time in his career last season; average out his three full seasons and you end up with 186 1/3. The sum of the parts is uninspiring.

Scott Olsen is not quite a front-end starter and not quite a workhorse. He is a number 4 or 5 starter, the kind of guy who can play Joe Blanton to the Phillies, Edwin Jackson to the Rays, or Dave Bush to the Brewers. None of these players pushed their teams to the playoffs, and none of them are considered part of those teams’ core. Maybe one of them will put it all together for a season and win 15, but it is likely they end up with the career of Odalis Perez. For next season you can count on Olsen keeping you in (some) games, but not on him winning games for you.

Josh Willingham is similarly limited. He’s 29-year-old outfielder whose career highs in batting average (.277), home runs (26), and slugging percentage (.496) all came in 2006. Since then, he’s slipped to .254, 15, and .470, with a bad back limiting his playing time. He’s capable of putting up a .360 OBP, which always has value, but he’s not going to be better than Austin Kearns pre-08. Maybe this was a trade you could have gotten excited about in ‘06, but like many of Jim Bowden’s acquisitions with the Nats (Wily Mo Pena, Kearns, Felipe Lopez, Paul Lo Duca), by the time they got here, these players had proven to everyone else that whatever star potential they had was faded.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that the Nationals really had nowhere to go but up. Emilio Bonifacio is touted for his speed, which I’ve seen referred to as a perfect 80 on the scout’s scale, but, as the saying goes “you can’t steal first.” His walk rate was below 7% for the last couple seasons in the minors, and he hit .243 in the majors last season. Maybe a Carlos Gomez clone at second works for the Marlins, particularly if he doesn’t cost anything, but the Nationals might as well play Ronnie Belliard.

Prospects Josh Smolinski and P.J. Dean were ranked 11 and 31 on Baseball America’s list of top Nationals prospects, so it’s hard to lament their loss. Smolinski is a 19-year-old who did OK at A level ball, and while some scouts think he might develop power, it’s hard to say if this is this is even a future major leaguer we’re talking about. P.J. Dean is a 20-year old who threw 46 good innings of low A ball. Nationals fans may be disappointed in the trade, but there isn’t going to be any deep regret over not having these guys.

So what’s the bottom line? Jim Bowden made some marginal upgrades while giving up very little. The Marlins may be happy to have shed payroll, but, on a basis of player talent, the Nationals definitely won this trade. But I still hate Bowden for making it. Why? Because, to a team like the Nationals, this trade is so pointless as to be infuriating.

I want the Nationals to build a championship caliber baseball team. In order to do that, they need a core of talented players to lead the way. They need a couple of star pitchers, a couple of star hitters, and a cast of solid regulars all under club control at the same time. They need Evan Longoria’s, Prince Fielder’s, Chase Utley’s, and Chad Billingsley’s. They need long-term deals with consistent contributors at prices that allow them to put more than one star on the field. Right now, they have none of the pieces of a championship team. Not a single one. Zimmerman could be one of the solid regulars in that scheme, but he is not putting up the kind of numbers that lead a team there. What the Nationals need right now are building blocks for the future.

The Nationals are not going to contend next season. They probably won’t for the season after that. And if Jim Bowden doesn’t change his approach, I can’t see them contending for the next several years after that. What the Nationals need more than a solid rotation filler or a small-time slugger is someone who could be a star.

The formula that created last season’s Rays, Brewers, Phillies, Dodgers, and, Red Sox is promoting superstar prospects from the minors together. Longoria/Upton/Kazmir, Fielder/Braun/Sheets, Utley/Howard/Hamels, Ethier/Kemp/Billingsley, Youkilis/Pedroia/Lester—all of these cores were promoted from within their respective teams’ minor league systems. Kazmir was signed by the Mets, but the Rays traded for him when he was still in the minors. That’s the kind of deal that will make an impact on the future of the Nationals.

Scott Olsen would make more sense pitching for the Phillies and Josh Willingham would make more sense playing outfield for the Mets. Those are teams that have their core set and need only to fill in the missing pieces to make a Series-run. By the time the Nationals have the core they need to make a run of their own, Olsen and Willingham will likely be gone.

So what good do our new acquisitions do us? Do they make a bad team good? No. Do they make a bad team watchable? No, these are not guys you go to the park to root for. But with a few more trades like this, they might make a bad team mediocre. And this is what I am worried about most of all.

Right now the Nationals are so bad ownership knows it has to do something. But they could easily sign a Tejada (read: Teixeira) and morph into the Orioles, trapped in year after year of futile average-ness. Olsen could be their Daniel Cabrera and Zimmerman could be their Brian Roberts, and instead of taking their lumps and getting their draft picks, like the Rays, they could make baseball in DC irrelevant.

While the Nationals got the better end of this trade, I think both teams come away losers. Bowden has made some solid trades, but unless he decides he wants to stop playing for chump change and start sitting at the big table, I will remain unimpressed.

SB Nation User Blog: a-danv

Where is Jim Bowden taking my Nationals?