Jul
23
Why does Jim Bowden have a job?
July 23, 2008 |
After a few years of watching this team up close, I am starting to think that Nationals’ GM Jim Bowden is one of the most incompetent GMs in all of baseball. In the last couple of days he’s made two moves that really don’t make much long-term sense.
Yesterday he dealt away his closer, Jon Rauch, to the Diamondbacks for minor league second-baseman Emilio Bonifacio. Rauch has done very well filling in for the injured Chad Cordero, and before this year was one of the better setup guys in all of baseball. So it’s strange that the Nats would get so little in return. Thom Lovarro was trying to push Bonifacio as a grade-A prospect, but his his minor league numbers do not correspond with that analysis. In reality he’s a middling prospect at best. The Nats could have done better.
Additionally, the Nats re-signed Christian Guzman to a two-year extension worth $16 million. This marks the third time inside of a year that Bowden has re-signed players having career years to middling contract extensions instead of dealing them when they have trade value. Guzman is having a decent year by his standards, but he is a barely average Major League shortsop. Last year Dmitri Young and Ron Belliard also were signed to contract extensions. Belliard at least is having a good season as a fill-in middle infielder, but Young has been plagued by weight and health issues, though he has performed well when he has played.
None of these guys are individually breaking the bank, but their salaries start adding up. Moreover, the Nats could have gotten some propsects for these players. Believe me, the Nats could have the worst offense in all of baseball with or without these guys. Add to that the ludicrous signings of Paul LoDuca and Johnny Estrada in the off-season, and Bowden has weighed his team’s payroll down with a lot of subpar players. And though the Milledge aquisition has not worked out well, that was a trade done with long-term interests in mind, and so the jury is still out.
Not all of the Nats’ problems are Bowden’s doing. It’s not his fault that Wily Mo Pena has dealt with a torn rotator cuff for much of the season, or that Nick Johnson has gone down with a season-ending injury. Again. One can, however, question the acquisitions of players like Pena and Elijah Dukes. And though he was dealt a rough hand to begin with, the time to keep making excuses for this franchise is running out.
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Cranky,
Those of us in Cincinnati still can’t believe he got another GM job after his performance here.