Forget what I've said in the past about firing people. Forget that I mentioned Lenny Harris, forget that I named Jim Bowden, forget all of it. After taking a serious look at the team over the past few weeks, I'm convinced that Bowden is doing his job. Let's first start off with the question that will pull everyone into this argument: Did anyone else seriously expect to finish anywhere besides last place in the NL East? Didn't think so. Sure, I thought 85 wins were in the picture, but it was really more wishcasting than anything. There's now no possible way that 85 wins can happen by the way - 82 is the most that can happen, and that'd only be 2 games above .500. And it would have to take a perfect record the rest of the way to happen... and that's not happening. Even the best teams can't finish out the season 38-0 (except the 21 game winning streak that the Rockies had last year). Face it - there's probably going to be a couple more years left in the struggle, but I'd like to call out all the hypocrites.
Who got Lastings Milledge from New York? Who got Elijah Dukes and Ryan Zimmerman and Jesus Flores? How about our young pitching? Who started rebuilding that staff? That's right... Jim Bowden. Before you guys criticize a guy like Bowden... put yourself in his shoes. Try to do his job better... if you can, I'd honestly like to see you try and get a guy like Aaron Crow to sign for $4M... still too much for an unproven rookie. Do we really have the money to invest in a guy like that? He hasn't shown us anything on the major league level. What if he goes in and can't perform at anything above AA ball? 9 of 10 picks signed... and we get another pick in the first round next year... 9a, and if the season ended today, we'd also get 1.
On that note... I've decided I'm going to analyze each part of the Nats after September 1st callups for next year. A bit of an early preview, but it's never too late to start looking ahead. On another note, speaking of September, that signals the approach of the hockey season... and so to kick it off, I have launched a brand new blog about the Capitals... take a gander at it over at
A Capitals Affair - and depending on what happens in the next couple of days, that blog could get quite exciting. I'll hint at this... if certain things fall into place, we could be talking about a Nats320 equivalent in the Capitals blogosphere. That is, not to get a big head or anything like that. SBF is a great journalist... and it'd be a very lot to ask to be able to compete at his level.
That's all for tonight.
