{"id":3500,"date":"2011-12-22T12:09:14","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T17:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=3500"},"modified":"2011-12-22T12:09:14","modified_gmt":"2011-12-22T17:09:14","slug":"reaction-to-tom-boswells-accusatory-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=3500","title":{"rendered":"Reaction to Tom Boswell’s accusatory column"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s Tom Boswell<\/strong>‘s latest column<\/a> about the Nats.\u00a0 The more I read it, the more irritated I get with his stance.\u00a0 Maybe it was a column designed to get a reaction of of people.\u00a0 If so maybe I’m just a sucker for reacting (and writing this blog post).\u00a0 So be it; in a town with so little Nats press coverage, those stories that do get printed have that much more import to the general public.\u00a0 And I don’t want the general public feeding off of a crap story like this to get their impression about the team, where it stands, and where its going.<\/p>\n

As far as I can tell, Boswell is taking the tired stance that “The Lerner’s are cheap” since they havn’t accomplished what they’ve laid out to accomplish this off-season (namely, obtain a Center Fielder and a Starting Pitcher).<\/p>\n

Here’s the gist of one quote that I can’t get over:<\/p>\n

If you want to know why it\u2019s almost Christmas and the Nats haven\u2019t signed Mark Buehrle, Roy Oswalt or Edwin Jackson, why they haven\u2019t bid on Yu Darvish or Yoenis Cespedes, why they haven\u2019t been within a zillion miles of C.J. Wilson, Jose Reyes or Prince Fielder, and especially why they haven\u2019t made a prospects-for-a-star trade such as the Reds for ace Mat Latos, it\u2019s probably because ownership is tensing up, tightening the leash again.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wow.\u00a0 Well there’s an awful lot of assumptions in here.\u00a0 Player by player:<\/p>\n

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  1. Mark Buehrle<\/strong>: the team DID make an offer to him, and came in 2nd.\u00a0 The Marlins, who suddenly are spending money without abandon, guaranteed a 4th year and a TON of money to sign him.\u00a0 Was Buehrle the answer?\u00a0 Was he worth 4 years at $14.5M in average annual value (AAV) per year?\u00a0 To say nothing of the fact that Miami heavily back loaded the contract so that Buehrle will be getting an asounding $19M in 2016, when he’s scheduled to be a soft-tossing lefty turning 36 years old.\u00a0 I’m sorry; its a bad contract and you cannot fault the Nats for not wanting to extend that much money on a guy who is no better than a #3 starter in this league.<\/li>\n
  2. Roy Oswalt<\/strong>: last time I checked, Oswalt hasn’t signed.\u00a0 You can’t MAKE a player sign a contract!\u00a0 Why is it the Nats fault that Oswalt likely is on vacation with his family and hasn’t signed a 2012 contract yet? \u00a0 In fact he specifically said that he was waiting for the markets for both Wilson and Buehrle to clear before he even considered what he was going to do.<\/li>\n
  3. Edwin Jackson<\/strong>: Boras client.\u00a0 Boras clients wait til the last minute to “create the market.”\u00a0 Nobody’s heard a peep out of Boras’ camp yet.\u00a0 Again, how is it the Nat’s fault that Jackson hasn’t signed yet??<\/li>\n
  4. Yu Darvish<\/strong>: $51M in posting fee and then reportedly wants a $75M contract.\u00a0 Darvish isn’t Cliff Lee<\/strong> or CC Sabathia<\/strong>, and those are the only two pitchers with contracts in the 5yr\/$120M range.\u00a0 Is Darvish the same as Lee or Sabathia?\u00a0 Not even close.\u00a0 He’s a good prospect who has yet to throw a MLB pitch and who may or may not ever live up to his billing.\u00a0 No other Japanese pitcher has lived up to his billing, so the track record isn’t rosy.\u00a0 There’s taking risks, and then there’s taking ridiculous, franchise altering risks that set you back for 5 years.\u00a0 I will not fault the team for staying out of the Darvish negotiations.<\/li>\n
  5. Yoenis Cespedes<\/strong> hasn’t even established DR residency, so he’s not even an official free agent yet!!\u00a0 How can you fault the team for not pursuing him if he’s not even eligible to sign??\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not to mention the fact that he’s a complete raw talent that needs probably a year and a half of minor league time and couldn’t help us in 2012?<\/li>\n
  6. CJ Wilson<\/strong> was a #2 pitcher who laid a massive egg in the playoffs and signed a lucrative deal to play for his home town team.\u00a0 What makes you think he was even considering coming to Washington?<\/li>\n
  7. Jose Reyes<\/strong> was another bad signing by Miami, giving a ton of money to a clubhouse malcontent, injury risk short stop who only produced when it was his contract year.\u00a0 Why even mention Reyes if he’s not a pitcher or a center fielder, in the context of this article?<\/li>\n
  8. Prince Fielder<\/strong>; again, hasn’t signed yet.\u00a0 Boras client.\u00a0 Not the Nats fault.\u00a0 Maybe Rizzo has spent hours and hours on the phone with Boras and we don’t know.\u00a0 I don’t have a phone tap into the Nats front office, does Boswell?\u00a0 Lets not criticize moves (or lack of them) until they ACTUALLY OCCUR.<\/li>\n
  9. Mat Latos<\/strong>-like deal: well, i’m kinda glad we havn’t made a Latos deal since I thought that deal was incredibly bad for Cincinnati.\u00a0 They gave up one starter, two close-to-the-majors first rounders AND a 4th decent prospect for a guy who I wouldn’t even say is in the best 50 pitchers in the game.\u00a0 If Rizzo mades this trade and gave away the kind of talent that Cincinnati did, there’d be a massive uproar.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Lets face it.\u00a0 The Nats stated needs were always going to be really difficult to fill.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because:<\/p>\n

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    1. there was such a lack of starting pitcher FA depth that those candidates out there were ALWAYS going to get bid up ridiculously.\u00a0 Its simple economics; lack of supply means a lot of demand.\u00a0 And, if you’re building a team FOR THE LONG TERM you don’t hamstring yourself trying to chase in the short term.<\/li>\n
    2. There’s even fewer legitimate CF targets out there, either in trade or in the FA market.\u00a0 There’s perhaps 10-12 legitimate CFs in the league who provide plus offense AND plus defense.\u00a0 You’re not going to just “trade for” one of these guys.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      So, any deal to fill either spot isn’t going to happen overnight.<\/p>\n

      Here’s another quote I take issue with:<\/p>\n

      When are they going to stop trying to build a suspension bridge with the minimum amount of steel and then, as happened in 2008 and \u201909, act shocked if it collapses? After one 80-81 third-place year, have they forgotten the pain?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      <\/em><\/p>\n

      Who says that they are?\u00a0 Last time I checked this team hired Rizzo in 2009, then formulated a plan, and the team has in the last two years improved 10 games each year in the win column while building a top-10 farm system.\u00a0\u00a0 How can you accuse the team of going off the rails of its own plan just by virtue of the fact that a couple of potential FA targets signed elsewhere in a seller’s market??<\/p>\n

      Boswell uses phrases in this article such as “All the signs are there<\/em>,” and “Its probably because<\/em>…” and “the Nats could end up<\/em>” and “Its what I suspect is happening<\/em>.”\u00a0 EVERY one of those phrases is Boswell conjecture.\u00a0 He has no idea what’s really going to happen.<\/p>\n

      Another quote:<\/p>\n

      Instead, they\u2019ve done nothing except sign washed-up center fielder Mike Cameron, 39, to a minor league deal.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      Really?\u00a0 They’ve done “nothing” except that signing?\u00a0 So all that work scouting players, negotiating with Buehrle, and talking trades was “nothing.”\u00a0 To say nothing of the fact that Cameron, while a minor deal, was a necessary one.\u00a0 This team has NO backup outfielders right now.\u00a0 Just as they have almost no utility infielders.\u00a0 So while CF and a SP were the #1 and #1a off-season priorities, there are other holes to fill.<\/p>\n

      One more hypocritical quote:<\/p>\n

      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\u2019re nice prospects. But odds are that none ever has a 15-win season. Buehrle and Oswalt already have won 161 and 159 games, respectively \u2014 and each may win 50 more<\/span>.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      Oh, so we can’t count on Detwiler, Peacock or Milone (total combined 2012 salary: around $1.2M) but WE SHOULD be throwing upwards of $120M on Yu Darvish!?\u00a0 Because he’s so proven at the major league level?\u00a0\u00a0 Why isn’t Darvish “just another nice prospect” as well?\u00a0 Wouldn’t you rather see if Brad Peacock is just as good a right handed starter as Darvish at 1\/100th of the cost?\u00a0 I would.\u00a0 Especially considering that for that money saved you could end up with somone as good as Darvish AND the next big FA slugger.\u00a0 That’s why you develop prospects, and that’s why you let them play.\u00a0 If instead this is an argument about why we should be getting Oswalt, well see above; Oswalt hasn’t signed yet!<\/p>\n

      Boswell’s over-riding point seems to be that the Nats need to be spending the anticipated $30M revenue bump they anticipate getting from the new MASN TV contract, now.\u00a0 That’s fair, certainly. But lets not print such a wildly accusatory article when its DECEMBER and half our possible targets are actually still out there.\u00a0 The team may actually still be spending that money!\u00a0 Not to mention the dozens of trade possibilities that nobody’s even considering since, you know, we’re not Mike Rizzo and don’t know what he’s actually considering or talking about with other GMs.\u00a0 We have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow.\u00a0 Tomorrow this team may sign Fielder, Oswalt AND Cespedes and suddenly Rizzo and Lerner are the heros.<\/p>\n

      Until tomorrow happens though, printing this kind of reactionary crap is just that.\u00a0 Crap.<\/p>\n

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      \n
      \"Thomas<\/div>\n
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      \n
      Thomas Boswell<\/a><\/dt>\n
      Columnist<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

      Nationals have more cash coming in, but refuse to spend it<\/h1>\n
      \"\"<\/p>\n
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      Toni L. Sandys\/The Washington Post – <\/span> 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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