RealGM

Thomas Boswell
Columnist
Nationals have more cash coming in, but refuse to spend it

The Washington Post - After making the Nationals respectable in two seasons, General Manager Mike Rizzo said the team was a player or two away from contention. But it seems ownership has not opened the purse strings to sign any significant players.

Now, half the winter merchandise is off the shelves, Rizzo is empty-handed, and the Nats could end up with one of game’s worst offseasons.

Other teams act when fresh cash is coming — either because of a new ballpark, such as the Marlins, or a new TV deal, which helped the Angels and Rangers justify their current big spending on Albert Pujols and Darvish, respectively.

Three weeks ago, the Nats had so many possibilities for improvement in so many areas and through so many different methods. But until you make your first moves, you can’t get to the rest of the puzzle.

Instead, they’ve done nothing except sign washed-up center fielder Mike Cameron, 39, to a minor league deal. Was that a flare from Rizzo? Venezuela rescued Wilson Ramos in two days; who’ll free the Nats’ GM?

In baseball, no pitfall is more common than becoming infatuated with your own young, unproven, inexpensive players. For example, you look at Ross Detwiler, Brad Peacock and Tommy Milone and figure one of them most likely will become a 100-game winner. Sorry, tilt! Not how it works. They’re nice prospects. But odds are that none ever has a 15-win season. Buehrle and Oswalt already have won 161 and 159 games, respectively — and each may win 50 more.

The other classic snare for owners is to delude themselves that spending huge sums will be much easier — so much “clearer” — in some vague future year when the free agent grass is greener. Most years, the Nats blundered both ways. They’re halfway to doing it again.

When your GM, in two years, has taken your pitching staff from the 28th-best ERA in baseball (5.00) to seventh-best (3.58), and he says, “We need a top-of-the-rotation starter to go with Strasburg and Zimmermann,” the only correct answer is, “Thank you for turning our hideous pitching into a strength so quickly — all pre-Strasburg — while also developing such a promising pipeline. Looks good to us, but if you think we need even more pitching, what do we know? Go do it.”

However, here’s what’s worse that not opening the checkbook for free agents — and it’s what I suspect is happening now. If your baseball people say: “We finally have the prospects to trade for a key piece. We’ll have to give up lots of promising cheap labor and we’ll have to pay the new star immediately. But it’s the right move,” then the owner should say, “Yes!”

A timely “yes,” a strong predisposition to trust the recommendations of top executives, is exactly what the Lerners have never provided the Nats. It remains their flaw. It’s always the same: Start from zero and build an ironclad logical case, full of slides and graphics, so Ted will cut the check. Many who’ve worked for the Nats say the same thing, in the same words: Their toughest negotiation isn’t with agent Scott Boras but with Ted Lerner.

Perhaps Nationals fans should apply a similarly high threshold of proof before they sign their checks to the team. Make the club demonstrate its case. Enact the winter strategy they so clearly laid out. And, with tens of millions of new TV dollars a year about to rush through the front door, it’s a plan the team can obviously afford — but, so far, has done absolutely nothing to execute.
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guvernator wrote:Washington just gutted their farm system for a middle of the rotation starter, you dingus. Go finish bargnani's biography because baseball ain't your thang.

dagger wrote:

guvernator wrote:Washington just gutted their farm system for a middle of the rotation starter, you dingus. Go finish bargnani's biography because baseball ain't your thang.

I can count to 19 which is seemingly more than you can do.

guvernator wrote:

dagger wrote:

guvernator wrote:Washington just gutted their farm system for a middle of the rotation starter, you dingus. Go finish bargnani's biography because baseball ain't your thang.

I can count to 19 which is seemingly more than you can do.

I know. You would need atleast 19 words to profess your love for the Italian nowitzki.

guvernator wrote:Washington just gutted their farm system for a middle of the rotation starter, you dingus. Go finish bargnani's biography because baseball ain't your thang.

dagger wrote:

guvernator wrote:

dagger wrote:
I can count to 19 which is seemingly more than you can do.

I know. You would need atleast 19 words to profess your love for the Italian nowitzki.

You seem pretty weak if you can't make a baseball argument. Go shine Nadir Mohammed's shoes.

Schadenfreude wrote:In this thread, Dagger touches himself to the thought of his own understanding of the Jays' situation.

And with that, I bid the board adieu for a long time. The utter lack of anything approaching discussion here has gotten absurd.

Schadenfreude wrote:In this thread, Dagger touches himself to the thought of his own understanding of the Jays' situation.

And with that, I bid the board adieu for a long time. The utter lack of anything approaching discussion here has gotten absurd.