Bowden out in Washington

by slurve on Mar 1, 2009 9:51 AM EST Comment 39 comments

Jim Bowden is stepping down before he gets fired and possibly charged in a kick-back scheme that may be coming to light from the whole Esmailyn Gonzalez debacle. How this guy kept getting a job in MLB front offices is beyond me, but I think this would signify the last time we see him in any front office job. The Nats are one of my "secondary" teams that I like and I can't be happier this guy is out....

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i actually really like what bowden's done in WAS

he needed to go anyway, but he’s left the team in a position to make the playoffs in the near future, and he’s certainly left them better than when he found them.

i mean, if you forget for a moment that there’s nowhere for everyone to play, they’ve got an OF of willingham-milledge-dukes, with justin maxwell and roger bernadina subbing in.

they’ve got adam dunn, nick johnson, and d’meathook at 1B, ryan zimmerman at 3B, and jesus flores at C, and a pair of MIers who had OPS+s in 2008 of 104 and 120.

pitching wise, they’re a work in progress, but they’ve got some young talent, and they’ve got a pair of top 10 draft picks.

i really think this is a team on the rise, not that it could go much further down.

When I think of turning boys into men, I know the first thing I always think of is a dildo with baseball testicles on the mentor's desktop.

by variablesdont on Mar 1, 2009 10:14 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

+1 for the most part

I don’t understand it either, I think National fans should be fairly happy all things considered with Bowden in Washington. The scandals and off the field stuff are certainly reason enough to get rid of him and sure someone like Beane or JS or Epstein would have done a better job but he has definitely improved their team in a relatively short amount of time. He basically inherited an expansion team and in 5 years time has them in the ball park of .500 baseball.

He grabbed Soriano in the trade market, sure he failed to resign him (like he had any chance anyhow) but the draft picks helped and he didn’t give up anything really.

The Kearns deal turned out to be pretty bad but Kearns is still a decent player if given a chance and all they gave up was Thompson in the end which is still a bit of an unknown (Sickels likes him but KG and BA don’t).

He signed Dunn to a bargain.

He acquired Milledge, Dukes and Olsen via trade at well below market value and acquired Flores in the Rule V draft all of which could help make them contenders.

The Aaron Crow saga was ridiculous (a couple hundred K?) but they now have 2 top 10 picks (one of which better be Strasburg) so it isn’t like it hurt and I’m sure hew calculated for that when the negotiations were ongoing.

He added depth, his drafts were OK, he hired Acta, they have a new stadium, etc, etc, etc. Sure the GM may not be the main person responsible for some of this stuff but he has his hand in most of all of this. I think it’s time for Washington to move on but I don’t think he has done a bad job on the baseball side of things.

by jfish26101 on Mar 1, 2009 11:06 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

some of the trades were fine

But considering how long they’ve been losing, the bareness of their minor league system is really indefensible. Bowden has always been a guy who cared more about tinker trades than drafting anyway. The franchise is no closer to contention than it was when it moved to Washington.

http://www.chop-n-change.com

by alexwithclass on Mar 1, 2009 1:46 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

It was far worse before Bowden got there.

“The franchise is no closer to contention than it was when it moved to Washington.”

That is so far from the truth there is really no need to respond.

by jfish26101 on Mar 1, 2009 1:58 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Okay...

I’m sorry you feel no need to respond. This is a franchise with a bare farm system despite high picks in each draft that Bowden has managed for them. Some individual trades I liked: Wilkerson and Sledge for Soriano; Majewski and Bray for Lopez and Kearns; Schneider for Milledge; Rauch for Emilio Bonifacio for Scott Olsen and Josh Willingham. He’s always been pretty good at picking up players off the scrap heap. But that’s all the team is: a collection of bargain scraps. When he came in, they said that it would take about 5 years to turn the team around and get it moving towards respectability, if not exactly contention. 4 seasons in, they’ve found themselves with one of the worst farm systems in the majors, one of the worst starting rotations in the majors, and a laughingstock front office that got caught up both in Skimgate and in Agegate.

Yes, they have Ryan Zimmerman. What else do they have?

http://www.chop-n-change.com

by alexwithclass on Mar 1, 2009 5:40 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

+1 Bowden was a great bargain hunter

He managed to get castoffs from other organisation such as the ones you mentioned. He was also great at getting good value out of minor league free agents, waiver picks, and low cost free agents. There are many examples; Belliard, Rauch, Langerhans, Redding, Hanrahan.

by tdot mariner fan on Mar 1, 2009 3:44 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Rauch was in place when he took over

The other moves were OK but did very little toward moving the Nationals beyond a marginal team.

He appeared to not have any sort of long term plan and often made moves without considering how they fit into the bigger picture.

by NFA Brian on Mar 1, 2009 4:17 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Well I think his long term plan began with building depth but we wont be able to see what else he had in mind now. 5 years isn’t much to show a GMs long term plans when you start off with a product that is as poor as that team was when he took them over. I’m not trying to argue that he is one of the better GMs or even that he is above average but I think he gets a lot of crap when he doesn’t deserve it. Perhaps he would be best in an advisory role? Because I do feel he finds good bargains and definitely left that team much better then what they were before he got there.

by jfish26101 on Mar 1, 2009 4:26 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

-1

They have a mediocre farm system, a poorly constructed major league roster made up mostly of spare parts and, oh yeah, they finished with the worst record in baseball last year.

He grabbed Soriano in the trade market, sure he failed to resign him (like he had any chance anyhow) but the draft picks helped and he didn’t give up anything really.

He even effed that up by not trading him at the deadline. Those draft picks were less of a return than he was looking at in July.

He added depth, his drafts were OK, he hired Acta, they have a new stadium, etc, etc, etc. Sure the GM may not be the main person responsible for some of this stuff but he has his hand in most of all of this. I think it’s time for Washington to move on but I don’t think he has done a bad job on the baseball side of things.

Acta is a decent manager – fine, but he had nothing to do with the stadium. His baseball moves have made very little sense and there never appeared to be a plan. The depth he’s acquired makes no sense. He’s stockpiled tons of guys at the same positions and no pitching whatsoever.

They were not an expansion team at all – in the three years before they left Montreal they went 83-79, 83-79 and 67-95. Bowden brought them all the way to… 59-102. Again:They were a 100 loss team in 2008. By no measure has Bowden been even the slightest bit good.

The farm system?? Ha! Your giving him credit for that? Theyve been at the forefront of two big scandals because of their farm system! Gonzalez’s age – and half the guys on the payroll were skimming bonuses!

The Nats truly suck at this point. Bowden has not only driven that team into the ground but burrowed underground a good bit. Bowden was a train wreck and its inexcuable he lasted this long, frankly.

by alskor on Mar 1, 2009 11:08 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I have nothing definitive to base this on....

but where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Jayhawk baseball - a tradition since Steve Jeltz

by JayhawkTom on Mar 1, 2009 11:02 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Bowden is a below average GM

Coming from someone who follows the Nationals, the problem with Bowden is that he never seemed to have any sort of direction. He spent most of his time here acquiring reclamation projects and former Reds. For every good move he made, there was a bad move.

And once the FBI/MLB investigations in the DR became known, he was a distraction. He could not capably do his job while having these stories repeatedly come out surrounding him and his hires.

The Nationals needed to turn the page on him and move on.

by NFA Brian on Mar 1, 2009 1:39 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

+1

http://www.chop-n-change.com

by alexwithclass on Mar 1, 2009 1:47 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

If you're telling me...

that the reason a GM is good is because he found some bargains off the scrap heap, like Belliard and LANGERHANS (yes, the same one who had 111 ABs last year… he’s good?) then he definitely deserved to be fired. The farm system is in shambles, they’ve got more scandal surrounding them than OJ, and of the three players who could have a future on this team, one is an uncontrollable punk and one is in danger of being replaced because Bowden stocked up WAAAAY too much on outfielders.
Flores? He got jumped from A+ to the majors. That can probably explain his .296 OBP last year. He’s not good, and that Rule V pick may have ruined his career.
And signing Dunn was a bad move IMHO. They’re not going to contend in the next two years. So why give a crappy contract like this to an aging slugger?

Conclusion: Bowden is looking a lot like Jim Beattie right about now, and this team is looking a lot like the Orioles used to (aging castoffs, aging former sluggers, some young guys, lots of pitcher attrition, bare-ish minor league system). The best thing that could happen to the Nats is Rizzo coming in and working up a youth movement- trading away everyone on the team except Zimmerman, Dukes, and Milledge for something.

by maneatingbaby on Mar 2, 2009 2:55 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

the team isn't good, bowden deserved to be fired, and i don't think anyone is arguing either point

but, he’s led them a long way from the bottom. they were racked with pitching injuries last year and they were the youngest team in MLB. both are excuses, but if you don’t think bowden’s improved the team, take a look at the roster he inherited and try to say the team isn’t significantly better off.

yeah, they have a few too many OFs, but adam dunn fell into their lap, and if the statement of an economic apocalypse has been in any way exaggerated, they’ll get a nice haul for him at the deadline or in the offseason.

and you don’t turn around a team by trading everything that’s not nailed down. that’s how you got to this point.

When I think of turning boys into men, I know the first thing I always think of is a dildo with baseball testicles on the mentor's desktop.

by variablesdont on Mar 2, 2009 3:29 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

he’s led them a long way from the bottom

Wrong. They were the worst MLB team in baseball this year and have a bottom tier farm system; you can’t get much closer to bottom. The only thing Bowden can hang his hat on is that they aren’t quite as bad as when MLB was deliberately running the team into the ground.

by aCone419 on Mar 2, 2009 4:21 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

i'll preface this by again saying that he needed to be fired, but

they were the worst team in baseball because 3/4 of their pitching was on the DL.

this year, they’ve got a core of young pitching with lannan, olsen, balester, martis, mock, and zimmerman to look forward to. they’ve got lottery tickets in the form of shawn hill, daniel cabrera, and jason bergmann.

you people are so absorbed with the idea of a prospect, but you don’t seem to realize that players like zimmerman, willingham, olsen, dukes, milledge, balester, lannan, flores, the guys that jim bowden stockpiled, still haven’t seen their best days. they’re still young, and they’re still getting better.

maybe they have a shitty farm system right now, but they’ve stockpiled young major league talent, and in 5 months, they’ll have added 2 top 10 selections to the farm and they’ll rank in the top half of baseball there, too.

When I think of turning boys into men, I know the first thing I always think of is a dildo with baseball testicles on the mentor's desktop.

by variablesdont on Mar 2, 2009 4:47 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Sorry, but...

acquiring a bunch of middling OF’ers just doesn’t do it for me. They’ll be lucky to get one above average player out of that stockpile. They weren’t the worst team in baseball because of their pitching – they ranked 28th in offense last year (only 4 runs away from being dead last) which was worse than where the pitching stood. That is a complete and utter train wreck he leaves behind.

Giving him credit for high draft picks? Are you serious? For real?

by slurve on Mar 2, 2009 7:24 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

i guarantee the nats will finish with more than 75 wins.

they’re absolutely not the trainwreck you make them out to be, and they’re a whole lot better than last year’s record.

yeah, it’s a running joke with expecting anything out of nick johnson and d’meathook landing on the DL with any number of sneeze related back injuries (and aaron f’n boone of the .680 ops had the most innings of anyone at 1B for the nats).

but look at what they’re losing. aaron boone will be replaced by adam dunn. austin kearns and wily mo pena will be replaced by josh willingham.

this team is not a pushover. and they are very much getting better. to say that they would be piss poor this year just because they were piss poor last year is completely asinine.

When I think of turning boys into men, I know the first thing I always think of is a dildo with baseball testicles on the mentor's desktop.

by variablesdont on Mar 2, 2009 8:10 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

It would be asinine

but that’s not why I’m saying. They suck.

by slurve on Mar 2, 2009 8:27 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Pitching

Even if healthy, their rotation was mediocre at best. They were a very bad and poorly constructed team.

by aCone419 on Mar 3, 2009 12:13 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Perhaps on the surface but in that park I think it’s average.

Bergman/Hill/Redding/Lannan wouldn’t have been that bad if healthy. Obviously no #1 but I think all 4 of those pitchers could put up league average #3 numbers.

If healthy, their offense would have been a lot better as well with basically:

C – Flores
1B – Johnson
2B – Belliard
3B – Zimmerman
SS – Guzman
LF – Milledge
CF – Dukes
RF – Kearns

Bench of Young, Willingham, Harris (should be playing 2B), Wily Mo, Schneider…I may not be spot on (I’m not a Nationals fan) and am going off the top of my head.

Again, I’m not arguing that they are a great team, that Bowden built a very good team or that Bowden is a great GM just that he isn’t nearly as bad as people give him crap for and did a decent job all scandals aside. :D

by jfish26101 on Mar 3, 2009 1:03 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Bergman/Hill/Redding/Lannan wouldn’t have been that bad if healthy

That is a pretty terrible rotation, even if healthy. Going into last year and assuming good health they would have ranked in the bottom five or ten rotations in MLB. I dont know what youre seeing here. Im hard pressed to think of a team that went into 08 with less quality starting pitchers. The Rangers, I guess…. arguably the Pirates, but I probably would take Pittsburgh’s five. These pitchers arent good.

If healthy, their offense would have been a lot better as well

Just like with the rotation, this lineup would easily be the worst in their division and among the worst in MLB.

Putting together this team above is not a “decent job.” That squad had little chance of competing even if things broke right and everyone was healthy. These players just arent that good. Even assuming all these guys stay healthy I dont know how you could not pick both the rotation and lineup as the worst in their division going into 08. I would take any other NL East team’s rotation and lineup over these guys, wouldnt you?

I really dont see what youre saying at all. This team was not well constructed and has a noticeable dearth of talent. If healthy I think that club still finishes fifth in the division and with a poor record.

by alskor on Mar 3, 2009 1:15 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Yep and when the Braves went from last to first, nobody thought they were any good either. ;)

Name Pos.

1. Deion Sanders LF
2. Jeff Treadway 2B
3. Ron Gant CF
4. David Justice RF
5. Sid Bream 1B
6. Terry Pendleton 3B
7. Mike Heath C
8. Rafael Belliard SS
9. John Smoltz P

Hell ya baby.

All joking aside, that team had a few pretty good players but I think the Nats do to. I’m not saying the Nats are about to do that but you are really selling the potential of some of these players short.

by jfish26101 on Mar 3, 2009 1:22 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The Nats scored 641 runs in 2008. Over 100 less than the next closest team in the NL East. 641 runs was good for 3rd worst in baseball.

EVEN IF these guys hit their potential and improve a great deal they will still suck. Their upside is around league average.

There just really isnt that much to like here.

by alskor on Mar 3, 2009 1:32 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

And league average is still a lot better then he was given. Yes the Expos win totals were decent just before Bowden took over but the team was going downhill fast and the farm was even worse. It takes time to right he ship, more then 5 years in most cases that are as bad as the Nats were. Look at the flipping Pirates! :p

by jfish26101 on Mar 3, 2009 1:35 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Ok, lets look at the 2004 Expos roster

Bowden took over in November of 2004.

C Schneider
1B Wilkerson
2B Jose Vidro
3B Tony Batista
SS Orlando Cabrera
LF Termel Sledge
CF Endy Chavez
RF Juan Rivera

Nick Johnson
Jamey Carroll
Carl Everett
Maicier Izturis
Ryan Church

SP Livan Hernandez
SP John Patterson
SP Zach Day
SP Tony Armas
SP Tomo Ohka

Sun Kim
Claudio Vargas
Scott Downs
Shaun Hill

RP Chad Cordero
RP Jon Rauch
RP Luis Ayala
RP TJ Tucker

———————————————————————————————————————

In all seriousness – I 100% like that roster better than what they have now. Vidro and OC were deadly up the middle. Wilkerson and Batista each had 32 HRs. Most of all though, the pitching on that team didnt suck to high heaven like the 08 (and 09) Nats.

by alskor on Mar 3, 2009 1:58 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Wilkerson hit 32 homers once

And I don’t know what happened that year, because his previous high was 23. The next year, his only in Washington, he hit 11 HRs in 565 ABs. Not exactly an elite power source. Batista had serious power, but would only hit 14 more homers over the rest of his career

TheSouthWing.com - A Magazine of essays, prose and poems

by OldProspects on Mar 3, 2009 7:56 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

To this end, I looked up the 2008 ZiPS projections for the Nats starters youve listed

that way we can see what people thought going into the 08 season. By ERA:

Bergmann: 4.79
Hill: 3.95
Redding: 5.22
Lannan: 5.30

There was really no reason to believe these guys were going to be anything resembling useful even going into 08. That is one guy projected to be above average. I dont remember anyone thinking the Nats rotation would be anything but awful going into 08, and – shockingly – it was awful.

by alskor on Mar 3, 2009 1:22 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Dan makes very little adjustements for progression. It’s basically strictly number based from what I understand and yes they had a rough year. This simply isn’t as black and white as you are trying to make it out to be, John Smoltz sucked until he was good just like almost every other player in the history of baseball. Hell Ty Cobb was released when he first started, man good thing he didn’t give up.

by jfish26101 on Mar 3, 2009 1:27 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

…I should have said it but when I said “yes they had a rought year”, that was meant to suggest that is largely why those numbers look so bad.

by jfish26101 on Mar 3, 2009 1:27 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

No, you misunderstand

Those are the projection FOR the 2008 season. NOT this year’s projections.

My point was, everyone was aware the Nats had terrible pitching BEFORE 2008 began.

You said:

Bergman/Hill/Redding/Lannan wouldn’t have been that bad if healthy.

And that’s not right. The odds are overwhelming that, yes, those guys would have been bad even if healthy.

by alskor on Mar 3, 2009 1:30 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

My point remains, he doesn’t take into consideration progression. He looks at the numbers, runs some calculations and spits out the numbers. I applaud his work but I think he doesn’t factor in upside and progression enough with his numbers. He has his reasoning for doing things they way he does, feel free to expect his projections to be spot on if you want. I for one believe those pitchers have more upside then that.

by jfish26101 on Mar 3, 2009 1:34 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Mediocre is generous

No way this can be blamed on injuries. That team’s construction was awful. They were still trying to fill rotation spots through Spring Training! They didnt have a 4 or 5 starter when camp opened IIRC. It was a joke!

and YES they are going to be piss poor this year, too. Dead lock for last place in the NL East.

They are 125 to 1 to win the World Series. Only the Pirates and Orioles (wow! dont get that one!) are worse at 150/1

Current odds to win NL East:

Braves 3/1
Mets 7/5
Phils 9/5
Fish 9/1
Nats 25/1

Jim Bowden turned the Nats into a laughingstock. Buster Olney was on ESPN First Take today talking about how other team’s front office people often laugh at how “dysfunctional” the Nats management is and how poorly theyre run.

The only good things I can say about Jim Bowden is that a) he’s not a bad talent evaluator; and b) he’s not Bill Bavasi. Come to think of it, its a miracle he didnt trade Lannan and Zimmerman (either one – your choice!) away for an Erik Bedard style bad fit.

by alskor on Mar 3, 2009 1:04 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Is 3/1 a typo?

Are you sure it’s not 1/3?

TheSouthWing.com - A Magazine of essays, prose and poems

by OldProspects on Mar 3, 2009 7:58 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Nope

For every dollar you bet it pays off 3.

http://sports.bodoglife.com/sports-betting/baseball-futures.jsp

by alskor on Mar 3, 2009 1:05 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

You turn around a team...

by trading for some good young players (restocking the farm system), making wise choices in the draft, and keeping the FA signing to a minimum until you’ve reached the point where signing a big FA will help you win.

To trade for some good young players, you need to trade players. Package together Belliard, Willingham, and Johnson and try to get 1 or 2 goodish prospects.

Make wise choices in the draft. And sign them too. Here’s my question. What if the Nats need some of that extra 20 mil to sign one of their draft picks? But they wasted it on Dunn, even though there isn’t a single way signing him helps them, besides that “too far into the future we-might-be-able-to-trade-him-for-good-players” philosophy that really is crappy.

by maneatingbaby on Mar 2, 2009 4:29 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs